you can not redo

“do you know how to play in the way?”
an old man shares a secret you now wish to unknow
“don’t redo anything, just accept what was,” he says
“and when you climb those windblown outside ladders
you must try to accept what is”

a foot before the next fool rung
two souls in a twirl like smoke from a kiln
(though one of you is dead)
still afraid of the naked umbilicus
seething over seas of regretfulness
sure, there’s forgetfulness and clinging above
and balking and shaking and more clinging for love
but there’s also the inexorable release
and beholden fall

those sarsen skewered swollen waters are
open to the lives pitched their way
the kerplunken, the sunken, the drunken out gills
and old afore the siren’s end call
no sound, so drowned, no longer found in the way

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2016