Inexplicable.
How we rise each morning,
instead of burying our heads
under bedcovers,
sewing them shut.
Why we keep on
welcoming babies
with bone-deep joy
to this sordid world.
How we fill burlap sacks
with grit and gratitude,
our hands shredded
as we drag one over the other.
How we refuse the daily pull
towards greedy dark,
keeping at least one toe,
some of us whole torso,
in the light.
Inexplicable.
It’s what makes a poem
worth writing, worth reading,
worth flooding the world
with redundant, flawed attempts
at explanation.
It’s just the way it is.
There is no other way.
Stumbling every time,
practice or no.
Just part of the bargain…
the unavoidable,
intractable,
inexplicable
bargain.