Michael Rastovich

SURPRISE PARTY!

Come help me say goodbye to all my bad habits.

After many years of meaningful service they are all retiring.

Please be discrete. Not all of them know they are leaving.

Good luck old pals.

I am the sharp bark of the tree that skins your knee.

I am the sand in your eyes the grit on your teeth, the thorn in your stride.

The unnecessary but inevitable truth.

I am your reflection, not softened with kindness or clouded by consideration.

A reflection full force of the sun. You will squint  and turn away, for I have cast your shadow.

Turn now to face sun’s source, your shadows now behind you.

If we all believed in the same thing, there would only be one thing, and a million is more fun than one.

God gave us gravity that we may learn to fly.

A picture, like a picture book, whose pages number one.

If you could turn the page, you would see, what would happen next.

What happens next, is what’s happened since, you looked at this picture last.

You may think of taxes owed, of union dues, and a careless lot that deserves what it got.

When I hear the sirens cry, I think of this:

Strangers rushing care for strangers. And a community who cares enough to keep a few, always at the ready.

Before you curse the traffic light, bless the road you’re on.

And you will find, your gratitudes, are bursting at the gates.

The rush of confusion, to realize the That, which you do not understand.

To see the vast, that can not be fathomed.

It is a falling, from the now, into forever.

A point of light, into the pale of darkness.

The complete embrace, of absolutely nothing.

 

I do not pine for love that’s lost.

I weep for love that never was.

It seems to count for a little less

When you see it all alone.

But it still counts.