YOU SEE IT COMING OR YOU DON’T

You see it coming, or you don’t –

And which is worse?    

You see it coming and --

The maddened rush – five-months-it-ought-to-take

All crushed into a frenzied one-hour-flat

Heart wild in throat – your hands get in your way –

The photographs?

Aunt Cleo’s wedding day:

Serene, that face, veil rippling, trimmed in pearls –

But she died one year later, baby too –

Ten years from now no one will even care!

How can we leave her smiling hopefulness behind?  How can we not?

For we have stocks and bonds and birth certificates

Strong boxes full of pulp support our claim

To decent living we have grown accustomed to.

What do you take? What do you leave?

One hour of so much hell.

Or you don’t see it coming, and the day

Grinds uneventfully along; the quarrels, routine,

Ho-hum in their banality.

Then in a rush –   it’s at you – in a flash

All spitting, twisting, grinding in its rage

to catch you unawares

Your struggles – so pathetic, ill-prepared 

You take what you can get your hands around:

A flower pot, a garden hose perhaps; a hated birthday present you’d thrown out

 –  all these the precious remnants of your life

so suddenly more precious still.

(And yet – that one last hour was yours

In all unknowing, unexamined bliss

Of ignorance.)

And who’s to say which one is worse?

You see it coming or you don’t – 

the end comes, just the same.