An Imperfect Morning
Imperfection abounds,
the evidence is everywhere,
misshapen leaves and tree trunks
hunched over and almost touching
the ground mark the morning -
a dog chasing a ball along the beach
has a bent tail, the owner a limp.
Across the road, a mower
that is cutting the grass
in the municipal gardens coughs
smoke out of a sick cylinder and a seagull
that waits at my feet for a scrap
is missing a foot.
And I and all the people that are here
taking in the morning air share
an imperfection written in our genes,
unseen, benign or a ticking time bomb
waiting to explode into disease.
Perfection is an ideal
that perhaps exists only in our heads,
a notion conjured up and given to grace
our departed gods. Everything carries
the seeds of its own decay,
is sentenced to pass away
and yet we swear we see it
shine through a crack in time,
in nature when caught sublime
in a moment of transcendent beauty
and in the love hiding at the center
of ourselves and our art
that threatens to break through
and illuminate our dark.
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