an end

momentary insular contact
like padded feet that almost touch the earth with every step

propels, compels and repels,
toward and from, back and beyond,
into and out of, with and without

there were times our tactless eyes bridged
the unbridgeable gap, that immense abyss
that is born of all that we lack

there were times, so brief, so few
that we touched and we knew
there were others around us
sharing the same anti-empyrean exile as us

and sometimes we felt we had all gathered
on the same arrow’s head, to see ourselves fly swiftly,
directly and ineluctably, to the comfort
of a collective murdering end

but there comes a time to know
when what you are and what you have been is enough

there comes a time to follow
the invisible shadow that proceeds and foresees
your insulated feet…

… the darkness that lies between your leathery sole
and your inevitable, earthy defeat

in that infinitesimal space
we cannot even fathom or relieve
there lies every impression and every fate
that has impelled our every step
to a precisely prolonged destiny

because we know, instinctively, that to be awake is to see

propulsion, compulsion, repulsion
we are each of us nothing more
than the chronology of our expulsion

back

to a cold dark immensity