THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF NOW

You don't think
you'll get through,
or make it,
or fade it,
or manage,
or survive
another minute
let alone hour,
but you do
somehow;
somehow
you squeeze
all the pain
all the sorrow
all the hurt
into the corner
of your eye
and groove
to the pain
of each
moment
each
exactly
pristine
rendering
of sorrow
of hopelessness
finding
a kernel
of pleasure
mixed
like vermouth
just waved over a martini
shaker showing itself
as if
by just appearing
it will somehow cut
the gin's kick.

The hours
and the days
and the years
bloody you
but provide
backbone;
a spine
against which
bones shatter
and dreams lodge.

The bad loves
are simply bad,
and the good loves
are only sometimes bad.
But to each
we turn toward
before we turn
away
or around;
each
have their moments
for and against
which the seasons struggle
to assert.

We only think
each moment impossible
to make the next moment
possible. It gives us
room
to flex
to stretch out
to hedge
and dodge
and plead
and promise
and hate
and accept.
It is the space
that death
does not
inhabit.
It is our space
inviolable
safe
the minute
between rounds.

You must have heart
to take heart,
take heart
to have heart
in the many bad times
and even the few good ones
as well.
To know
that we simply cannot acquire
too much
is the wisdom of the gods.
There is a kind of balance
that we are not privy to.
That is a good thing if
you listen
and look,
and look
again
and often.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2011