Moments Between

Oh me, oh life

of the questions these recurring

of the school building where

I go again and again as so told to,

of the complaints I read online

about how the world should live

as One, and how the complainer

sits idly before his computer

wondering why the bomb doesn’t

fall, oh me, how I too sit complaining

of how the batter lays down his bat

and the impoverished Indian picks

it up, I bat no better nor more

than the next man in his bedroom

playing Call of Duty, oh me,

how do I swing to contact

the ball with steadfast vigor

and feel it between now and

the next moment as between asymptotes-

I slip forward uncontrollably and

awake to find the bat

was not actually in my hands

but I’d only dreamed of holding…

this is that point inexplicable

oh Life, one of these recurring,

            And I must know,

            what should I write

            to myself, complainer

            great and miscalculating

            for my true security?

            How do I swing

            well and why should

            I hit, far or foul?

            Or Out?  What is Out?

            Is the next man succumbed

            for carrion comfort in

            Call of Duty going to be

            me?  Oh me…

            Beneath my reason god

            Stands rudely naked and

            silent in the shade.  I am

            still here, alive, conscious

            In this moment recurring.


(Inspired by Walt Whitman's "Oh Me, Oh Life."  "Carrion Comfort" is the title of a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, a poet I do adore.)