WHAT WE HAVE NOW

What we have now is a future
that won’t meet us in the hotel lobby
with a bouquet of roses, a driver, and the agenda clear;
a future no longer waiting like a loyal lover wanting
to witness and caress, accommodate and meet
our wishes until we are ready to feel utterly bored.

What we don’t have are friends who will stop by for breakfast
with stories of smoky relationships
that drown our senses and make us wake up
to just one more unruly morning without demands or telephone calls
when dewy birds and music heard know the moving feel of living.

Now we see how monsters, angels, prophets and poets
try to face the void, how desperate men measure the rope
and build the gallows, how some hear the fear and authority
in the words of stern fathers and some listen to the muddy
dependable words of doting mothers.

What we return to is a blank tape or a mirror
of the future filled with stuffed animals, ancient dreams,
fruit plates and flower arrangements; we remember
broken dolls, starched table cloths and keys to the attic
where old musical instrument no longer keep the time.

What we have now won’t go away: dry sticky dust
and pain, blind prayers and hungry oaths,
orphans who grieve at the graves
of their parents, and parents who nurse
the last screams of their children.
What we have are newborn babies
who must greet the salty air of arrival
​but also face the sweet burden of our hope.