Marvin Glasser

ON THE PAST

It wasn’t a bad day as days go.
I awoke in the morning.
I was still around at the end.
Another gauntlet run.

The problem was all the other days
that washed up against it
bringing the wrack of memory,
neutered hope, mute regret.

They certainly cast a pall.
What the day might have brought
on its own, who can tell?
One of those long reaches into light

that perk you up with a bliss or two?
A dive into the pith
where terrors assume their forms?
An idling in pointless being?

But I take what I can get and piece
together a life. Being human
means dragging the heavy weight
of what you almost were behind you.

–from Rattle #22, Winter 2004

§ One Response to “On the Past” by Marvin Glasser

• Edward S Majian says:

  July 16, 2009 at 9:23 am

  An apt reflection by one who has felt the hair-splitting emotion that exists in the space between passion and inherited burden.

  Reply