The Art of Survival

You say it is waste—and you have a good case.

Your fire for life, for its wine on your tongue—

you’ve had to shut it down. Push it far beyond the

mines at your foundation to just keep breathing.

                                  one – two   three – out —

                    —in—

To forget yet keep the card catalog—that is the

torture that puts 40-watt light in your eyes, pushes

your blood forward, keeps it creeping toward your

heart and

                                                                          out—

you know you can never go back.

All the beautiful plays left unplayed—

bellowing risks simmered down into

a quiet poultice to be clapped on your

wounds at night—tiny battles of

five typed words won underwater

as the rest of the world sleeps, weightless.

This art kills you, you think.

You think it’s killing you cell by cell—

when you think about it—whenever

you see your vanished past leap

into the well backwards, on rewind,

to play out its phantom storylines.

And yet these shackles—

you believe it—breathing—

                               — in – one    two – out —

are something else—not wings, not

some false coffer of visible wealth—

but roots, maybe, not just roots that tear

down to the heart of the earth unseen—

but roots, also, that crack the pavement

breath by hair’s breadth, planning to

overthrow a great wall, a great mountain

one day—in a second—splitting kingdoms

with wide boughs that stretch out to

welcome in every rare living thing

to come build its home. 
Even if in miniature.

Maybe—

             breathing—all breathing—

                                                 in—out—
                                                             in—out—

              then this art will turn

that corner on which destruction

is revealed to have strange design,

on which bitter pathways gnawed

by insect, fire, disease—will turn

into a labyrinth—a waterway—a

motherboard of wonder—a home—

and this time you will live—

                                            and breathe—

                                and move—

             and have being—

—and you will

finally lose the argument

that death had its way

in this longest of 
winters.