My Window

“But about that day or hour no one knows...

And what I say to you I say to all:Keep awake.”

Mark 13: 35 and 37

Listen to me: you could lose this all

Not in the far off sense of environmental catastrophes,

But you, personally. I write this

In bed unable to go out and explore

The shifting meters of sun and cloud;

Hearing only from a distance the occasional bark of dogs

Or the distant wailing of a siren

Mapping the geography of tragedy

While the traffic murmurs.

All those things that never happen, will!

They have happened to me. The stalking specter

Of disease that robs the tongue of taste,

That makes light a searing threat,

That muffles sound and thought

And makes a prison of one's weariness;

Which trades the sky of moving clouds

For a stark white ceiling

And a desperate yearning.

A prisoner in one's own body,

An orphan in one's own city,

A voice crying in a familiar wilderness;

The hand of fate can open

And give you these things unexpected.

So I tell you, walk with your head raised,

Raised to the lofty and infinite sky.

Walk in awareness of the beauty of creation,

The mosaic of green and blue,

The tracing shadows and the jeweled puddles,

The voices of young and old in humanity's chorus;

Walk in this world with joy;

While you can!