Weathering

The littlest pains are creeping,
a slow swell of blind weight piling,

crying brings no giant, earth
mother has shrunk to sibling size,
and her after-image, sky father, is
as thin as any infinity is.

The dirt asks the rain
to pelt it back together.
All that far-flung dust
that never dreamed of flying

wants to sleep, or die or do
whatever verb can still make peace.

The big pains are stalking
bigger fish in the big-boy pond,

frying with the skin and bones still
in, for the line of heathen homeless
begging for better than loaves,
more than wall-eyed, stinking protein,

the water asks for quiet.
She's been writing this song
a century, and she'd finally like
to hear it. She plans to fall

and cannot stand how she hits.
She does not end in the noise,

that is the rain's mediocre, everyday
pain. She never gets to the ground.

Durance

Time may merely be the instrument set
to play the tyranny of a tempo
engraved around the sole sphere ever let
roll from the roar of the first crescendo.
Perhaps fate is also a slave, and only
made to play our master, a uniquely lonely
puppet without even a parallel
to imagine one day touching, still,
time harbors no stillness for us, the galley's
oars must stroke without hurry or delay.
Time breaks no pace nor makes provision for
weary foot or head. No pause for the poor
hearted wanderer to tour the treasured
storehouse of doorways all inherit each
night by dint of dreaming, no moment for
the lost to go once more unto the beach
to beg a place in history's shrewd net;
never waiting for the unfortunate
to ford even the shallowest occurrence,
or explore the shores of lesser horrors;
no stoppage of the plodding of the plot.
Not even the full-blooded patriots
of the practical may woolgather before
the glory exchanges their headlong rush
for another present in prettier wrapping.
Never a rest, never a step unlocked,
the scores of the recklessly hopeful must
give their war-march the same and only drum
that every atom of existence hums to.
No nameless thing, no spirit, no one and no two
are spared their seat in the dark, hurtling core,
that blind, piercing line that must ride
the unbending track of the unending next.
We all ride the rocket which stops for no star,
each full hour of ceaseless thrust is ours
to sit or stand or rush through, the only trust
given is the debt each passenger must
pay for their perpetual endowment of now,
for the privilege of being billed.
Time honors no breadcrumb trail of science,
promises no sanctuary to sound
planning or the savage magic of music,
no, the only truth that holds time
is the same, constant, inescapable
speed he lets beat down on every being
that began after him. The counting set
by no chanting demiurge, no angels' chorus,
no dragon's wingflap, no mathematical
constant, that rhythm will never let loose
of the ears of men. Those hands that pull
toward the only forward we know, those hands
gripping the silver thread no mind nor
body can ever break or break stride from,
they are the same hands that hold time
to his one coursing of the universe.
Destiny is held a great success by this.
Every dictator is measured by the stricture
he makes on earth, as it is in his heaven.
Time takes us through the only image
there is, the sacred resurrection of
occurrence, the same glass-thin second
come again to shower their scattering
and their sharp upon on us until we are
the same as our gifts, always shattering.
The word can wish it otherwise,
but the word has yet to learn the secret
of being true. Time has leave to travel
undescribed, unenforced, unplanned, to unravel
its secret self in plain, ignorant sight.
The words make treaties with us, but have no might
to defend us against our marching orders.
Time gives us no country, only borders.