Wednesday, November 15, 2023

TO A CHORUS OF TEARS

by tom bauer




It seems inevitable his eyes would look like that
singing that song, effulgent with yearning
for things lost, as the river weaves towards
the past. Reminds me of cartoon eyebrows,
pointed in an inverted ‘V’, like a tent,
anguished peaks over wounded disks, singing
what might be the saddest song ever made.

An invisible step leads to this next question,
on foot, an actual physical object
moving in space, in the moment of space,
not merely that moment witnessed onscreen,
a moment now in the past, outside this one,
this moment here with the keyboard, the echo,
the cat on the radiator nesting his head.

Are we free? As time waves out, are we free?
Free of the pain, the breath, the trees and light?
For it seems we are not free on earth, to choose
to run or fight, to give or take, we are
in moments welded to our choices,
fixed outside freedom, choosing what we must.
So are we free, then, when we die? Is that it?



tom bauer lives in montreal with his sons and plays boardgames.