September 10, 2024

let the chips

fall where they may, we sigh, after thinking we’ve thrown the final 
log on the fire, see the woodpile down to scattered fragments of bark. 
It’s not that we don’t have more fight in us, lost touch 
with what we’d stoked at the outset. Yes, there was so much 
to say, so much rocket to our rocket. But time tamps down 
the flame, or else the wind steals it away. The audience grows cold. 
A chasm widens between what we imagined close and what resists 
our advance. Yet what makes the heat isn’t what keeps the ember 
burning. Every night, the sky flares with distant stars. 
Are we looking up? Are we looking?