musing on a park bench in Valencia’s Placa Dels Pinazo

12:35
Oh the edge of death not sure which side is safer
I partake of wine and juju, chew a wafer.
The titles of a million books to read,
the half not written yet, pass in review.
The half of those, their authors being dead,
won’t ever be. I try to buy a few.
The cold that passes understanding calls.
I hope my bold not answering to it stalls
the inexorableness of history so far.
I am wishing on a nonexistent star.

12:47
In pointy shoes, the smiling dancing mother
and her husband and her mother praise her baby.
They are happy as they should be. Life is blooming.
The baby’s laughter lights the universe.

12:58
Where are we? I don’t know. I have no map.
I buy a map. I learn that I am lost.
An urgent call to action makes me nap.
I dream about the chances I have tossed
aside so often they have scars embossed
on every surface. Centuries elapse.
I warn heroic actors, ‘Mind the gaps’
but no one listens. All of them ignore
advice from ancients letting loose their clasp
on everything. The way I did. Before.