Little by little, all of our
small supple hours
will go leaping
and whirling cocksure
into heaps, which are, at first
gently shaped into silent
resilient days—but then
become compacted and glazed
by the stiffening hands of discipline
into ruthlessly strong and
stubborn vessels called decades—
until eventually,
even the slightest changes
in temperature, moisture
and atmospheric pressure
act as needles
to breach their integrity, causing
every splendid old one of them
to crumble
into an indefensible waste
of clipped shards and pieces.
But curiously, it's not the opposite,
but the inverse
of Time—a thing called Endurance,
which soldiers on quiet
and selfless in the dark,
soothing each jagged corner
with its golden balm of tolerance
and gluing the fractures
back together in more resilient combinations.
But Endurance also bears its own signature,
an ultimatum—that any product
born of such a reconciliation
shall never again posit the desire
to be flawless; nor can it ever again
aspire to resemble
the same design
for which it was
formerly celebrated—since it knows
the only vessels strong enough
to withstand ongoing ravages,
are those which bear the most proudly
the thick cracks
and fissures
of each former surrender.
