Someday it must make sense,
This badgering of the past, this fever for a future tense,
Will all add up, although
You’ll know by that it’s passed from the realm of what we
      know
Into another kingdom instead;
Somehow the remarkable, if passive, role played by the dead
And tomorrow’s heralding
Must merge into conviction, an idea of heirloom quality,
      a Ding
An sich to have and having hold,
And you will grasp the fact that even for the very old
At heart, the object of existence
Is best viewed as an amulet, a token of venerable resistance
To be worn against what aches.
As mutable moons come up, as relentless sunlight breaks
On your dullness like a mood,
Provoking all the natural reactions of rage and gratitude
In all it is enlightening
(Stones throwing gabbroid weight around, vines tightening
Their python grip on a dungheap,
Thoughts rising, swirling, flying like the sparks that leap),
You will believe the braid
Of tangled moments forms a noose you must enter to evade;
Till then, you’ll have to live
With something more or less, say with a photographic
      negative,
With a precisely-drawn
And haloed absence, the outline left by wisdom when it’s
      gone.