Aubade at Eighty Five

Dawn after dawn another image flickers behind the eye,
there for a moment only before it dissolves and tears
away, nudged aside by yet another image, each tumbling
down into some yawning vortex before it too disappears.

Each waking dawn you find yourself reassembling
your thoughts bit by bit, stone by stone, then lose
yourself as light rivers in around you. And so it goes,
as you ask yourself what’s the truth and what’s a ruse.

Is it true, then, you ask yourself, what the psalmist sang,
that in the long run it all comes down to nothing?
An image bubbling here, then floating off, swirling down
the chasm as the flickering light drowns in some silent spring. 

Still, you find yourself searching for a word and then another.
Say it! Speak the truth. You are my hope, O Lord. I place my trust
for the ten thousandth time in You, even as my enemy grins,
mocking me with his mimicking: Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. 

In you, O Lord, I place my trust. And so another day unfolds
before us—you, me, the stranger up the street. And you pray
for help, one day at a time, sweet Jesus, as the mantra goes.
And you grip the cross in your pocket, begging Him to stay. 

⸺

This article appears in March 2026.