Most of All, Time (Eclogue 4)

If we could account

for each raindrop,

for each hair on a lover's head,

for each scruple of dust, or

if we could account

for each scintilla of

blank noise and electric snow

adrift amid the empty

channels of our radios

and our televisions,

each pointed by their

very natures, as our

hearts and heads—

these, too, are made of

raindrops, static, dust,

and left-behind hairs—

antennae in each dimension

pointed towards the cosmic background;

in each dimension, but most

of all, in time.

Most of all, in time,

because if we could account

for these, then we must

count each second

before the heart gives out,

or the lungs; a slight twitch

unregistered in our ledgers,

not noted in our death certificates,

but registered somewhere

in blue stars, noted somehow

in the flight of birds

over red canyons;

and we must count, too,

each half-second,

each quarter, each eighth,

the subdivisions onward

towards the infinity

where the heart never

stops at all, still an infinitesimal

particle of life left behind in the lungs;

and count, too,

the second before the last,

minutes, millennia prior, and

light-years, pulled out backwards

through time as a loose thread

until we discover there is

but one thread, connected to itself

and connecting the infinities

where the edge of the universe

must be measured in the riotous haze

of a single electron, maybe the first

that tipped the scales of nothing to something.

If we account

for most of all time,

then so each final time,

each final transaction

between the eye and the world

as the eyelids, not heavy

with sleep but heavy

from life, narrow sight

to a thin sliver,

the last bar of light

between the curtains or

between the blinds

receding into an impression

of light behind the lids,

pulled over the eyes as the blanket

tucks in our chests,

and the last light

of our eyes, the thin membrane

to protect it, to seal it in

for as long as the light

can illuminate our dreams;

surely this is why

it is best to die

in our sleep,

not because of the morphine

of unconsciousness,

not because of the freedom

from pain,

but because of the thin sliver

of possibility

that we might go

in the middle of a dream,

to wander immortal

as an eye between the worlds,

seeing the beyond

that was our life

as the outlines of buildings

shrouded in mist after rain,

as silhouettes that shuffle

behind closed curtains at night;

but then we could not account

for the gamble:

the silhouette, your lover

leaving behind new hairs,

the city, hell.

To risk heaven,

if the light burns through

the mist, radiant towers;

or the silhouette, your

lover, radiant breast

and hips, in waiting, as if able

to see through to you

from the world

on the other side of the eye.

Best, then, to die

in the midst of life,

for to account

for each raindrop,

for each hair on a lover's head,

for each scruple of dust, or

each mote of static

would be to count to

infinity, stuck eternal

in the subdivisions

trying to stave off

the inevitable last twitch

of the heart, knowing not when

but knowing that it will come,

so preoccupied with the accounts

that for each raindrop

we miss the

hush of the rain.

John K., 9/20/2009