Apprehensively (poem)

Apprehensively

Everything was bet that day on ends

Still his mind hedged with a handbook

He had created through practice, of devil’s arcana

He disliked the internet, but learned its self-delusion…

not what can be, but is aspired to

the great and wealthy totter on a temple

tiered to the heavens stacked on shaky backs

the world’s Insignificant shouldering this

a necessary dream of magic

all things taught to you by fairy tales

a ship to harbor bearing chests of gold

but too the exonerating witness

There, in the land of smoke, where time moves

if we befriend it and ask of it kindly

to be as we would, time moves

The quest is complete

complete, while we labor on to glory

Then to bury evidence

to dig it up and sow a great enchantment

My accusers, realize! I command you

Conspirators like crouched assassins

See your joy, a petal unfold

and they would have it

Cover your face again with the mask

Tulip men and women of the spring

Let untimely chills jet themselves past

And splay your shelterings before this sun of…

Of yeoman’s work, this man who has lost his faith

Will I dare happiness, let my bequeathing be reviled

Not for myself, you see. All vanity I surrender like thistledown

I am in the light detachment of departing my career

I will go to the mountains and watch for comets

After comets, I will watch for waves

Apprehensively

Her Day

(2021, Stephanie Foster)