Michael Rastovich

All the things
that we can think of
and the thousand more
that we cannot
are each but a single thing

The best that we can ever do
is bruise or bless
the space around us.

Darkness is not the time to close your eyes

Darkness is the time to open wide

For it is within the darkness

where the un-see-able is seen

She asked him, “Where you headed”
He said, “Same as you”

We’re all going to our graves my dear
I’m taking the long way there

Me, I came up the hard road, she said
got here quick as I could

Then asked him if he would mind it much
if she kindly tagged along

Well my way is a tangle, he said
and I stop a lot to tend to knots
but it’s not my road to tell

Till then, he said, and tipped his hat
and bid her, fair thee well

When you can see the horizon
it’s easy to expand

But when you’re buried past your eyeballs
You just can’t understand

For those who have nothing
there’s still something you can do

To start down a new path
learn something new

It is not
That the earth shook
and a mountain shattered

It is not
The blooming bud
or immanent sorrows

It is
That someone
saw it happen

With love and lonely
God created our world

with all truths
great and small

that we may know
our splendor

The hinges and spring
in chourus sing
With every squeak and skrong
they sing this song
A melody of memories
of all who happened through

Each charge of children
Every covered caserole
And friends who came to call

Every sneaking out early
Every creeping in late
A bundle of joy carried in
An empty vessle carried out

Every slamming marks a moment
Where everything changed
Everything changes
And the screen sings no more

The moment of now
brief beyond discretion
unaware
Between a memory
and an anticipation

The Artist stretches
a second into a stroke
The first brush
hours before the last
A signature says
“I saw this”

And the moment now
realizes itself
Between a memory
and an anticipation