HOPE IS IN THE MOMENT

We are cast of stone, all kinds,
no two the same, amalgamations
worn by time’s erosion, by

wind, sun and rain – warming,
soothing, eating away towards
the core of our ultimate humility.

Even the lofty falcon’s perch,
gray-haired, exfoliates into the sea,
the Sierra’s teeth crumbling and

the cobble found to fit a hand
are finally sand, gravel for highways,
particles of dust stirred and inhaled

as strangers remembered, carried
in our chests. What do the eyes
truly see, searching for that mystic

connection of great and small, those
depths we explore where details meet
and fall in love, or lust, or like –

or as we gird for battle? Here,
in that moment there is no time
to relive the past or dream of some

future futility. The real action churns
with it all at once, in the current
like a river rushing, pooling, soaking

richly within us, before moving on.