Wager

I advance to the edge of encounter.

No better way to disclose my motives.

If only I could make the motion

to reclaim patterns of the past.

The sky is girded with steel, ratcheted

to contain the misery of Earth.

Circling for a place to land, the lucent

moon drowns in the ocean tide.

Strained to the limit, I grind under

the weight of monotony. Existence

teeters on a pointed rock that wavers

in gales from the north. Ice spreads.

A golden, azure dawn. One way

to defeat death lies in the dregs of charity.

I give myself over to the élan vital.

It overcomes the cares of the living.

No promise draws me into the horizon.

No sense of duty answers the resounding

Either/Or. Nature cycles through seasons

without identity. The self wanders, balances

on stone, rises to new life, juggles the possible

with the inevitable. Pascal’s wager renews itself.