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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