What we have now is a future

that won’t meet us in the hotel lobby

with a bouquet of roses, a driver, and the agenda clear;

a future no longer waiting like a loyal lover wanting

to witness and caress, accommodate and meet

our wishes until we are ready to feel utterly bored.

What we don’t have are friends who will stop by for breakfast

with stories of smoky relationships

that drown our senses and make us wake up

to just one more unruly morning without demands or telephone calls

when dewy birds and music heard know the moving feel of living.

Now we see how monsters, angels, prophets and poets

try to face the void, how desperate men measure the rope

and build the gallows, how some hear the fear and authority

in the words of stern fathers and some listen to the muddy

dependable words of doting mothers.

What we return to is a blank tape or a mirror

of the future filled with stuffed animals, ancient dreams,

fruit plates and flower arrangements;  we remember

broken dolls, starched table cloths and keys to the attic

where old musical instrument no longer keep the time.

What we have now won’t go away: dry sticky dust

and pain, blind prayers and hungry oaths,

orphans who grieve at the graves

of their parents, and parents who nurse

the last screams of their children.

What we have are newborn babies

who must greet the salty air of arrival

but also face the sweet burden of our hope.