Until It Is

From Human Obscura • Issue 12

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No one knows how to live
except at once—

here
and now. You see
what is going on
and you respond
in the only way you know,
learned as you go,
by instinct, trial
and error, the luck
of where you landed.

Like the snowdrop pushing
surprised up through snow
in the spot where someone
planted that small bulb
long ago and forgot
through months of freezing.
You don’t know
how much you can give,
what will be required
by what happens
to you, or to
the ones you love.

Until
it is.

You don’t know how long
your heart will continue
doing what it does best,
what it knows how to do,
has been doing since before
you slid out into this bright
and cold world,

how much you will hold,
carry, yearn for—and
how many days you’ll keep
trudging, letting in what-
ever appears when you open
the blinds the next new
morning.