Because We Fail, It Ought to Be

That’s why we go on listening.

— Susan Blackwell Ramsey, 
“The Best Part Of This Story Has Been Left Out”

Fast clouds before your eyes. White lilacs
at the back of my mind. Between,
coffee’s scent dances like the morning flurries.
An ant haphazardly searches the tile, then the sky.

Call it Saturday punk rock. Call it God.
Call it life, the universe, and everything
beyond your thought and feeling, and mine.

I struggle here to bury our ashy allusions,
to rise and not breathe the fallout, but it’s easier
to scatter dry rooftop snow when clouds
rush across the midday sun, leaving us

to embrace the difference.

-- Bill Trudo