Worldly wisdom?
I’m still looking, scanning,
skipping right to the end at times,
or settling for the gist on the first page,
reading—more selectively across the years—
but reading just the same, in the news
and novels, articles and extracts, poems even . . .
searching for the one, the word, the sentence
that can tell me what it’s all about,
why I’m here, will not be here much longer,
where this morning’s golden-leaving
autumn beauty comes from,
why, and what it’s for,
who thought this whole thing called existence up
and maybe has a clue about its shape
and size and possible duration.
While all the time, beneath, behind,
beyond the endless pages,
the unrelenting streaming of the words,
it unquestionably happens,
keeps on happening,
without any hope or need for explanation,
moving on, while I stand wordless,
gasping in its tumbling wake.
