Saturday, November 5, 2016

The accounting









Did you get what you hoped for?

You have been keeping the tally all along.

And what is your score? What did you need? What did you receive?

Did you hands serve you? Fate? Your disposition? Is there anything that hurts, right now, forever?

What can you eat? What can you earn? 

Can you sell? Can you move? Can you make beautiful things?

Are you too bright, too lazy, too funny, too hard, too true, too plain?

Did you get love?

It is always love. 

How much did you get and what have you done with it?

Oh beautiful and terrible world!

Count it all up.

Do it now!

Count up every gift and every promise witheld from you. Do not lie. Do not refrain from all the world cheated you. Because the world has cheated you.

Now count the gifts. But remember: what others would count a gift is not necessarily a gift to you. Did it save you, make you, secret the thread of light in your blood. Then count it up.

As to your losses, what can we do? We are not gods.

And the gifts? Our share of love and fortune? We can't do much about that either. No matter the tally of all joy and sorrow there's little we can do, but we'd better do it before we can no longer tell them apart. 

We'd better do it even if all we can do is take the most fair of them and try to keep them company, scattered, few or many, about our feet, like stars.








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