After the Party, at Middle Age
Brandon Cook
We are mortal
We accept it
So our task rises like a guest who has waited patiently through the evening to confront us, and takes our hands now, gently,
Directing us toward the garden, some wisdom to impart
The confetti all settled on the carpet will wait for morning, as we walk lightly into the night
“The bill has come due,” he tells us, beneath the moon
And, next morning, we sit dutifully and stir our tea, and wonder
At how quickly it all flows, and how little we can hold
And that as all things go, so we go, in the stream of everything
Yet, last night—
We seemed to see the moon,
We could see it, after so many nights beneath it
As if some childhood returned to us
As if we knew enough of its orbit now
To know that freedom might, in fact, be our destiny
That great orb slowly pulls itself free, even as it pulls the seas
We smile at the thought of someday and somewhere being just so:
Held in orbit
And yet free