Sliding Into the Fourth Quarter of Life — The Plush Green Moss of Eight Beatitudes

You’re not sure when the rules slipped
out of your filing cabinet to wander beyond
the respectable suburbs and lose their way.
You only know that they have.

You still catch yourself searching your office
fingering through manila folders for official papers,
but you come to, more quickly now,
in a kind of warm intoxication,
a sober little glow
that you share but can’t talk about,
because talking threatens to blow it out.

So you carry it, quietly, curiously, feel its sad intensity,
encompassing and complex, painful and colourful,
ripe with heartache, ripe with rainbows,
rich with an easy uncertainty and an insecurity
that needs no locks or alarms.

It’s like those old stone tablets you broke your teeth on,
were taught and thought meant everything; and all that
underlining, all those notes, research, commentary,
are now covered in the plush green moss of a few beatitudes;
it’s like a moment at the summit of night
and everything fills with impeding dawn;
it’s like the fine-leather leaves of holly,
peaking red in the sufficiency of fall:

no epiphany here, just a bit of honesty,
openness, a bud of clarity,
a not so heavy load,
a little glow
that should light the rest of your way.