That Which Was Lost Is Now Found
Suddenly it all works out. The Red Sea snaps closed.
Grapes ripen on the vine as day-hawks gyre
far up like angels. Love is not the twin born
out of the cavity in the torso and never fully awake.
And the albatross comes home. Then what do we do?
Some bedlamite will find a ledge overlooking the heart
of the fiasco and begin the famous ritual.
It is part of the cycle—dark before the dawn
and all that. Pay no attention to the young one,
the naked one star-crossed above the street, however.
What was lost is soon to be found.
Be of good cheer, people. I’ve come to tell you,
tell you all, that it will surely work out.
We wouldn’t have it any other way. When we come
to find you, greet us warmly—we have what you want
dangling by a silver thread. We’ll show it to you flying
on the mainsail of the company corsairs cruising
down their corporate rivers as another dawn-of-time
is taking place, a complicated one that begins
when you open the door in the morning and ends
with you leaping from the ribs of the city at dusk.
But no matter; do it again tomorrow!
Someone will reinvent the wheel, reinvest the dollar.
We surf bubbles, juggle dice, count cards as they come down,
and get up from the pavement again and again (anyone
who’s signed up beforehand, that is—please see your contracts).
That’s the great thing about living where we do. Don’t take it
for granted. Meanwhile, over the ocean, the electric eagles
are wheeling, keeping the shoreline safe. We have to pay
for what we believe in, after all,
but don’t mistake the receipt for freedom.