On Hope & On The Future

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Pandora’s box

did not

come with explicit enough

instructions.

Read it cover-to-cover:

three pages,

two words,

“hang on.”

Goddamn it.

I try – and fail – to not overthink it.

The sky is red again today.

But I know that

right as I’m about to crack,

I will break through.

Sure enough,

it all cleared up.

Time for a change in direction!

Cassandra pleads with me

not to go through with it.

Lays out every uncomfortable truth

about

what I’ve done and yet to do

in immaculate detail.

What is certain to

occur, in divine mathematically-precise

tea-leaf readings.

I can only doubt her.

Spent the next few days

on fool’s errands,

running directly into

the current,

asking every one going the opposite

way “how about that weather,”

and they smile and nod,

going about their day.

I never saw it coming.


Dandelion

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Go on,

get it over with.

I dare you to kick me over,

I will turn the other cheek.

Just try to mow me down

you won’t get my roots out.

Oh, what’s that?

You brought the herbicide today,

oh, green-thumbed one?

I hope you don’t miss

a single one of us

once.

Even if you can manage

to banish all of us,

our cousins will pop back over

from the neighbor’s yard.

No matter what happens,

we have the utmost faith

that we’ll be back.

In the face of degradation,

we live on

by way of what we scatter,

by what we leave behind.

May our hope,

sail on warm zephyrs

and forever outrun

your worst machinations.