OPENING THE CRISPER: A FUGUE

Photo by Bobby Wong, Jr., Philippines

OPENING THE CRISPER: A FUGUE


There can be joy /in opening the crisper, finding /a third of a sweet potato on /the brink of mold or dessication. /There is still a way to save this.---From “In What World” by Hannah Stephenson, The Storialist 07-10-12



1.
It is not too late, there is still time.
Time enough to start all over again?

Time enough to peel off rotten edges,
Look new as cankered limbs, hearts

Of darkness lit by flickering starlight.
There will be time, and time to save

Even this hapless piece of wriggling
Worm, this man, this shadow of life

Creeping into sunlit shelters where
Crawling is de rigueur for the tenant

Of this place, this earth, this hole
From whose depths we late emerge

From shall so soon expire to claim
An orbit among the rended remains

Of body and soul and his illusions
Of immortality, his undying atoms.


2.
In what world will we find happiness
Again? In what place, a fresh start?

Like that moldy sweet potato left
In a crisper, there must still be a way

To save it for an evening’s repast
When this hunger gnaws no limits

In this suspected late night diner
And one orders something sweet,

Something filling while we wait
For brighter mornings in this desert.

But if that morning will not come.
What is there to save but saving?

It will be late then. Who will require
Bright days, cloudless skies, or joy?


---Albert B. Casuga
07-10-12