Beyond this beginning

So go down the road. Be death, be stardust, enter the
duality known to the generations who are vanished,
who left behind this double image, but only half
the message, just the instructions for how to begin.
~ Eleanor Lerman (from her poem Muons Are Passing Through You)



Instructions For How To Begin

It all looks so simple. Every day begins not too unlike
the millions before it: a rousing, a stirring, a changing
from nocturne to reveille as owl gives over to rooster.

How this will all unfold, no one can say. It is the first
lesson we set aside before bearing wing, paw, fin,
foot to its taken purpose. Everything does it this way.

The journey promises one thing: it will reach an end.
It will not spur you to go this way or that.
One signpost is as good or useless as the last.



Should you find me struggling with my shoes,
do not hold this knowledge against me. The snail
treks a world far larger than we can hope to imagine.

Half-erased, I set this for your eyes to reassemble
in any manner you might deem fitting. Beyond
this beginning there is, remember, yet another.

Joseph Gallo
March 1, 2010