Every Expectation Is.
Every expectation is the whole thing is whole.
But, you'd know by now it's mostly in pieces,
A life being put together
(At random times yourself the author, but)
Most often made/smashed/re-made
Of pieces that might be familiar, at once,
Or so odd you can find no place for them
Until they are suddenly, seamless there
And you have no recall of how they came or were
Positioned so precisely so.
You want it to make sense
In some manner that might be grasped
And held for examination, and, by choice,
Choice made of what retained, what spurned,
What must be had, and what might be made do.
But choice like that's illusory
(Like said authorship) -
It simply seems at times
That, at times, you're shaping, in control,
Making set steps as to a plan.
Store such times in memory,
That's where they'll serve you best when
You've come to wish you were anywhere
But where you are at whichever particular 'right now' it is
That is pinching you too tight to breathe.
Seek then for succour the false true memory
That there were times when you knew exactly
How/who/where/why/when
And that was the end of it, like a square-cut jigsaw
Of your own features, so familiar, so casual to form
Into just the way things, you'd decided,
Had to be. Would forever. Memory is good for that.
But for the rest, which is all that remains,
To make it the fullest 'all' possible,
Take the jagged pieces as they come, place them best as you can,
Wriggle, put up with the itch of the un-looked-for
Forced and unpreferred fit, until,
There is that seamlessness
Of common use and the greater art,
(Making you of what you never wanted to be/experience/feel)
When, catching yourself unawares
You like what you see
More than your plans had outlined,
All borders broken, nothing set
Except your heart
On the next
Unexpected/unpredictable/unavoidable
Occurrence that makes you more -
Than scant instants (just then)
Before.
Upon Learning of the Death of Marc Chagall.
1)
It is a new gravity
That restrains not at all,
But is the right to fly
By will or circumstance.
Always she, who
Features,
Always she,
The Earth cannot curb…
…she is all earth,
Loamy, pullulant
And fecund, all
Light, colour, soft as rock
(Time, in time, works hard yielding):
Flight is not fantasy.
The villagers remark nothing,
While tourists gape, cameras slack at their sides,
Knees weak and unsure, Sunday-startled.
Not oddity, not fresh bread,
It is, just as is… is.
No vision, no grace,
No blessing -
An endeavour,
As real as sweat in the field,
Fallen thick to the earth,
Unsown, sowing.
Each crop, a memory,
Sure as craft,
Certain as skill,
Unconsidered as the blood,
Fresh and ancient.
Bread.
This the sustenance, then
Benedictory,
The unconscious gift of commonstance,
That makes us all apprentice,
Should we wish, wish,
And do.
2)
Embrace, hold,
In clasp, unconstrained;
Commingled, vision/memory,
Inspiration stuff to laughter, things darker,
All things, all blood, all light,
All of a life, that was,
Still is;
We are us,
One in this gravity
That is not falling;
In no time, hardness yields,
The earth all richness, sown, sowing,
And its embrace,
She, flight