Member-only story
The wise fool
— it’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there — Bob Dylan
My brother and my son on the edge of the cliff
walking and talking, they look out to sea
I shout and I shout, but they don’t hear me.
they’re fading, they’re falling, off the cliff side.
The sky is as huge, and the sea is as wide,
as the waning of moons, or the rising of tide.
This Calvary moment, when Satan speaks well,
promises to adjust things and make it all swell.
If only I’d sell him the right to the light. Darkness
arrives in the middle of day: dripping with blood
that won’t go away. His shadow is mighty and
a darkness holds sway.
The man on the cross is taking aeons to die
we remember his son’s last despairing cry:
My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?
now thousands of years go soaring right by.
Bewildered, at all of the things I left unsaid:
serendipity, chances, a whole life cut dead:
he’s wise enough to play the fool
despairing of time, life is cruel.
