Wasn't I dreading turning a year older?

Wasn’t I dreading turning a year older?

 

Evening of September the 12^th.  What the hell?

Where’s my life?  In letters, photos, report cards, IRS forms,

transcripts, journals, and poems?  It’s a mess

that congeals then blurs like a vision in a cloud

or dream seeping into day.  Hey!  It’s just a number,

right?  Ain’t it what the faceless nameless “they” say over

and over until the chant moves my lips?  Just a number, but

haven’t you noticed people put faith in numbers?

        Seven deadly sins and seven pillars of wisdom,

        ten holy commandments, three spirits—father son holy ghost,

        fourteen points up down on the Dow Jones, Billions of burgers

        served / sold—twelve apostles showed up for dinner,

        and the sun is still 93-million miles out there and faces us

        with an eight-minute delay.

Just a number or a way to make sense of beginnings without end.

Or is it ends without beginnings?  Or both?  An always was

and will be.  Perhaps I confront a point that vanishes on a landscape

with a perspective I can’t perceive.

 

20 nov 1998, 1 april 2009