Walter Bargen: This Falling Away Age

We are at that age when any moment all words are last words.

Some might argue that it could be any age and they are right:

Golden (probably not), Enlightenment (never), Reason (too rare),

Innocence (unlikely), all falling a decade in either direction

from then and there to here and now, it’s too much to brush aside,

to file away, to claim, I didn’t hear it, didn’t know, but you are

certain, and if not certain then you will certainty

that I did it, blacksmith hammering iron to convince

the glowing metal that the heavy blows know the shape

of deaf belief, as if we’re ready to go Medieval on each other again,

so add Chivalry (less than little left) to the march of failed Ages.

That you pray for this is a wonder, and I wonder what words

you gather to ascertain this assignation, and perhaps it is

the words themselves that bind and blind belief,

that I will survive you by enough and you are certain of that,

but enough for what, to make some difference, sometime,

somewhere, and how, though it’s here you become vague.

When is enough enough, the age-old question that’s plagued us

at every turn, and with enough, will I be more fully alive

or more fully dying, and to calculate the difference, to measure,

to  know, to what end is this enough, where and when do our

different ends meet to finalize their moment? The heraldry

and loud trumpets of this fine fall tapestry, announces that there is

no place for any of us in this falling away Age, as winter’s elected

representatives open wide, bite down, swallow hard.

Copyright 2018 Walter Bargen

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