throwback: 2004: calculus

    It’s a tall order,
Even on the border of it:

To live like you wanted,
    Much less haunted

    Than heralded by it.
It’ll hurt you, won’t it?

Indeed, if you own it.
    Godspeed if you don’t,

    Heaven help if you won’t—
It’ll needle you ‘til you will,

‘Til you can trace what matters
    In the fog of windowsill;

    What tatters of love
Loomed you stronger still;

What you borrowed from above
    To defray the basest bill;

    Though it drove you mad,
Half-filled the leakiest cup.

Life is tough, look it up
    In the storied likes of Churchill,

    Teresa, Wallace’s bloody kilt—
Finger-sift their silt of life.

Strife hates everybody,
    No wilt it wouldn’t wish

    On any blossom, grey or gaudy,
Even in your own garden,

Be it naughty or nice;
    Pay it thrice, it’ll boomerang back

    To break your ribs with a clap.
It won’t teach happy,

Nor slip you sappy
    Reminders of tenderest joy;

    That’s your fist in the fight:
Your more tomorrows

Than yesterdays, fewer sorrows
    Than smiles, more miles in the soles

    Than in the road that rips ‘em,
Right or wrong, count ‘em—

Long for light and mount ‘em
    In easy sight of blackened eye.

    That’s the calculus of why
You’re, striving, still alive.

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    Poetry: Eskimom Kisses
        https://windstrewn.com/2018/04/10/eskimom-kisses/

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