LAUDAMUS
So let us praise the incomplete,
the half-made-up, the left undone,
what’s underbaked, what’s scarce begun,
the set-aside, not-yet-concrete.
Let’s laud what’s left unsaid or dropped,
the barely finished, still to come,
to be announced, to be revealed,
still-in-production, uncongealed—
and praise, for all that, what’s to do
and what’s ahead: the yet-unplanned,
the things we’ve always said we’d do
and what we never thought we would,
and what we never thought we could—
ignoring what we knew we should
and didn’t, never found the time
and left aside, what we omitted.
Here’s to the things that didn’t fit,
that made no sense, that didn’t rhyme
or quite serve the meter, what
we cast away, failed to commit.
So praise the ones who let things lie,
not bringing to completion all
that seemed so necessary once,
and proved irrelevant in time.
—from Rattle #68, Summer 2020
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Gregory Loselle: “I’ve recently published my first book, and teach in southeastern Michigan.” (web)
