"recovery is in the remembering" - rebecca sanborn, bastions

folding themselves and time and light,
malleable in patient hands who
made a bold display of cold, gray days

metaphor or monument
its a script for progression

they are teaching me how to create
in the thirstiest times
but the most i can muster is
usually a tearful hug of gratitude

time comes mowing
forever stamping us with change
and robbing us of the only things
seemingly meaningful

we will throw banquets
and fundraisers
and pen tributes and poetry
or immortalize the lost on stage

and so death is
cowed in its corner
for now
even though someone pegged me for 38 the other day
and even though jenny has a shaved head
and despite michael collapsing on the treadmill
and forgetting all the troubled and maimed we'll never know

we'll still point and shoot for admirers, friends and lovers
and even in the death of dreams,
marriages, partnerships
careers and lives
the act alone is the only prayer of substance

creating song, myth, statue or pledge
we'll push past the moment
we always feared
and knew was coming
and the best of us welcome it