July 27, 2010

always, at the end of every day

It comes to this: the fall to bed. Despite Herculean hopes to repair

the broken furniture, to birth works of unassailable beauty,

despite a heart with its tongue out, panting for love, or the hawk stare

we train on our most extravagant intentions. Despite the toothy

rigor of the bad habits we can’t break, and the soul-trials of discipline

which repeatedly establish our guilt. Despite our wayward exile from joy,

we fall to a set of pillows, cotton sheets, a mattress, and make a cocoon

of our bodies. We won’t admit it, but we’re designed for rest, too, a buoy

to save us from the rough seas we insist on weathering. Look how little

it takes for that kind of surrender. How easy we can be, how gentle.