An epiphany of history

A bloody tear

 In the momentary blindness

Of a sunshine daydream;

Of what life could’ve been.

 

Instead we have

the normal crucifixions

the splatters of human brains

all over underground trains.

 

In my beginning is my end,

the starting point for music and poetry and art,

the gulags and the camps and massacres

that stretch from  Manchester to Lahore to Orlando

passing the terrible travesties,

Of the suras of the Quran and Talmud

from place to bloody place

from time to bloody time.

 

We need old words, older connections, the oldest ways

to pass this time of thoughtless day;

to solve the sad geographies

Of unresolved philosophy.

 

Marcus Aurelius  taught us, so-long ago,

not to feel exasperated or defeated or despondent

because our days aren't packed with wise and moral actions.

But to struggle back up when we fall

and to celebrate behaving like the merely humans

We truly are

Capable of a courage and honesty

So far beyond our measly expectations.