WEEKS LATER

Out here on this empty road, with only
the tiny vibrations of the highway,
and the horizon, I wonder if we’re going
to make it home tonight.

People will eventually be gone—
I don’t know how it will feel, for youth
to give way to mortality. We’ve spent
most of our days leaving things behind,
not sure what will be missed
in the future. I don’t know anything,
except that change will come.
Will we ever really feel settled?

We spend so much time
wondering if we’re
walking in the wrong direction—
if our best intentions
are enough to find our way.
We don’t have answers, but we have
questions. No solution, but a burden.
They will get us by.

And the morning.
They will all get us by.

(April 24, 2009)

WITHOUT THINKING

This occasional but heavy feeling creeps up on you
as dusk approaches: Here is another piece of our lives
that means nothing. Our aim is off again.

Getting down to the coast,
the water and the horizon
seem to lean in quietly, almost
silently, echoing the same message
with the confidence
that it will some day be heard: “It’s not here.”

We try and we try, and it just doesn’t
seem to be the way we envision it. Everything
has been replaced, and this is what now exists between us:
“Good-bye old friend—I can’t make you stay.”
“Good-bye to you—you won’t be seeing me again.”

(April 5, 2009)