46

I

This life these choices
Front end or back it is
up to you where you
want to expend the effort

Those are choices for you
Yet the destination always
will remain the same
no matter the course

Downslid and upsliding
Doing all of this again
on a loop played only once so far
In real time since forever

I end where I begin
Absent of light or darkness
with nowhere to go
and never anything to do


II

We make what we are
We’ve made who we’ve become
Appropriation of a handful of pieces
from millions of jigsaw puzzles

Self-selected self-taught
self-directed self-helped
We are as much as one
as we are all, all alone

These are the decisions we make
have made will make
that chisel the marble
from rock to not

When you pilot the airliner
Auto-pilot is disengaged
during the hardest parts
Training and experience still matter


III

Had I trusted myself more
Had I taken a step outside
Had I followed my own advice
Had I continued to survive

The final page of the final act
Unfinished like Schubert’s 8th in b minor
Unwritten and unmolested
Canvas blank and un-stretched

Step-by-step closer to
a different sort of singularity
Independent fully of systems and structures
All alone in the crowds

Wave of sea wave of sound
Crashing waves of humanity
Too much is nearly never too much enough
The greats know when to bow or flame out