he sits and sings under the pulse of falling snow.
He doesn’t think of papers stacked on his desk
at his government job, the view through a window
of a wall; the presence of no one listening
to pleas from citizens; the eight-hour-work-day
eyes through which the citizens glare to fill out forms;
snowflakes building on the windowsill
with the patience of government workers;
the workers without the snow’s patience,
refusing to help the citizens they serve. Today,
he examines the story of his life, which is to say,
he accepts any mistakes he’s made, refusing
any excuses for himself. He remembers, just yesterday
he woke eager to attack his To-Do List of mistakes.
It’s the news he read on the doctor’s face, this news
brought him to act so beautifully today. It’s just now
that all the words the world tried to say, make so much sense,
now when the face on the clock looks at him with such pity.
He forces a smile, tries to make the seconds hand trip a bit.
For years, he’d thought himself too old to learn
new tricks, to master a hand of cards or a woman’s heart.
A man must be willing to look like a child,
who has yet to believe in death,
to attain his desires. Yet he believed
if he kept repeating what he would never master—
making love, making money, making happiness—if,
through the failures, he kept nodding his head,
he thought this would make him appear mature.
Once when he was a child, drowning in a pond, he had a chance
to decipher the mystery of living. As he drowned,
he kept grasping at the mystery, but there was nothing to hold;
suddenly, he gave up fighting,
giving himself over to water, and he popped to the top,
floating, he believed he had pulled himself to the surface.
But surviving is not the same as living, is it? Suddenly, he wants
to buy a hat, cock the brim to the side. Why not buy a young woman
silk stockings, which she’ll only wear to his funeral?
Why not clear off his desk, push a form through the system
to build a playground with a swing for which he’s too old
to enjoy? His dilemma is either an opportunity or a
final prayer, and he realizes there’s no choice there at all.
Why not sit on the swing under falling snow
and sing a song about the brevity of life
for the children making footprints behind him,
though the footprints will melt with the morning sun?
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