ON THE PAST
It wasn’t a bad day as days go.
I awoke in the morning.
I was still around at the end.
Another gauntlet run.
The problem was all the other days
that washed up against it
bringing the wrack of memory,
neutered hope, mute regret.
They certainly cast a pall.
What the day might have brought
on its own, who can tell?
One of those long reaches into light
that perk you up with a bliss or two?
A dive into the pith
where terrors assume their forms?
An idling in pointless being?
But I take what I can get and piece
together a life. Being human
means dragging the heavy weight
of what you almost were behind you.
—from Rattle #22, Winter 2004
__________
Marvin Glasser: “For me the need to write poetry is a purely selfish one. To put it simply, I write to find out what I think and feel. It’s a form of self-definition. Without it, especially now that I’m long past spring chickenhood, it might well be that I’d float off into a quantum funk.”
