Balance Sheet

Not so much the fear of dying or of being dead

(absolute nothingness

is what we can’t conceive

but must imply at least

an absence of unrest)

not so much fear… rather distress

knowing so much is done

badly or left undone,

and if something’s done well, not knowing at all

if that can help the scalepan fall.

To stand before a judgement-seat

and hear just what

the things we’ve done, the things we’ve not

are in an absolute cold light

 

Or

to be sent bach—

another life, down or up the scale,

again, again, again, until

our beterness prevail

to free us from the wheel…

Either of these.  But these and anything

like these lie outside

my sense of what might be.

No, alone one has to make

(fumbling in the dark,

measuring light against dark,

light against prevailing dark)

one’s own garbled, prejudiced reckoning.