When the dark plumes of night shed away
the indistinct morning reveals us.
We regain our world-worn awareness
like flecks of luminosity on a dark canvas:
ourselves reconstructed again from memory
at every dawning.
How can we not be who we pretend to be?
(I try to be genuine, to interrupt
myself when I am wrong…)
Are we a mission or a monument?
We cannot love every impossibility, only
the few within our measures. So, we choose
one to begin with and hope for
an echo…
(We resume the day as if nothing had
been lost—until we remember. Yes, memory
is the greatest tragedy and the wisest act
of compassion.)
Michael S Marsters 