sum total

that sad laughter
shock in their eyes
that silence that asks
where are you?
where did you go?
that person
we once used to know?

that moment
of cold understanding
a stranger in your own home
speaking in a voice still known
cracking tired jokes
stealing away for another smoke
yet there’s still hope
that it’s all a really bad hoax
a stupid prank, a circus trick gone wrong.

only it’s not
it’s happening
too real, too clear
the scuttling despair
stunned, confused
indignant, silenced
by so much tranquility
all without special effects,
sudden hates, or hollywood flare.

of lives kept whole
through trials, tribulations
by effort, hard work
perseverance, devotion
and that little bothersome pea
piled deep under a comforting surface
that unrelenting pebble: decency,
the artist formerly known as morals.

but these are all unknown words
to the fugitive at the gates
searching for hasty rest
in nests and labyrinths
of snippets and illusions
of a life once spent
in anger and blissful contentment
which the patient forebearing eyes
start to suspect
was never the actual truth
but something close
interwoven with delusions and lies.

and yet, the shock, the surprise
that fortunes could be so drastic
so completely opposite
to everything hoped for, expected
but all eyes remain dry
some calamities are obvious
rising, growing, ominous
like darkness towering in the skies.

as to the moral of the shambles
of the hastily-told story:
it sneaks up on you, life.
it just happens
and suddenly, almost abruptly
a quarter of a hundred’s over
and the happy would-be wasp,
all flash and excitement,
knew not how
while the boring bees
went ahead and led
quiet industrious lives
buzzing away in their prosperous hives
bothering no one
generous with their produce
(what sweetness, what honey
what gold!)
seeing studiously to themselves and their own.

so make sure your life’s truly your own
and not borrowed, dictated,
delusional or loaned;
we are all bees of the same stock
human, from foot to forelock
(which needs no tugging, mind you)
we’re all working away
building, expressing
making, creating
with our personal pollen
in our private honeycombs
filling the expanse
hand to mouth, ear to heart, earth to sky
all that will combine, comprise
the sum total of our lives.