For Johnny
***
We have cause to be
greatly unsettled, at times. Unsettled as is
trembling, shivering flesh in
deep winter; out! springs our
warm breath into cold,
cold air, and hovers in front of us like
ancestral ghosts; and just like
those spirits, when it fades we
aren’t certain it was there in the first place.
When our private fog dissipates
mere moments after creation,
how can we know beyond doubt
that we even
breathed
at all?
And yet that mist, that
pitiful, minimal dew,
joined with the
moist air, with the
lofty, soaring cumulus, may still
find gentle rest on
vulnerable yellows, on the fragile blues of
flowers;
which thrust through the pavement,
fighting to bring
pollen, beauty, sustenance,
continuance
to the rest of cracked earth.
We have so much to
admire about this secret, select
brevity;
like gentle streams that flow through
our small, dry land,
bringing always new, always fresh, even if
never quite the same
water
to barren, parched lands,
assuring that
tomorrow’s petals will be as
fragrant, as colorful, as
brilliant and memorable,
as were, are, today’s.
***
“The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long. And you have burned so very, very brightly…”
– Eldon Tyrell, “Blade Runner“
***
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