What was the life
Jack dreamed of
caged as he was
in a place he didn’t know
waiting for a signal
or an intervention which came
as all things in life do
out of the blue
to be transported to a broken
cabin in the woods
being restored by a man
who needed much of the same work
done on himself
which Jack knew
in the way any animal knows
another animal
and feels another animal
as himself
so Jack fell in step there
with the man and decided
to stay near him
with him
to help however he might
in the rebuilding of this place
or of the man
who seemed to be working
with all his might
to find his way
to that rebuilt self
himself
that could make choices
step by step
in just the way Jack would
cross the wet grass
in the morning
alert to whatever
might come next
and free to choose

Love is a much easier word
to say than to live
in all its manifest meanings
the seen and the unseen
the known and the unknown
the formed and the forming
in the liquid and the crystallized
where solid may turn directly to gas
and entropy envelope intention.

I only know what I know
in the moment
where the past may redouble the present
and the future dissolve backwards
into contemporary mist
because the here and now
no longer provides
the next tile
for the path imagined.

Do not point out to me
that I did not know
but have compassion for me
that I tried to be truthful
in all the ways I knew how
every step of the way here.