For What Its Worth

Falling through the narrowest point of an hourglass full of time — and asking which step brought you here.

i'm falling through the narrowest point of an hourglass full of time there's a computer before me, a kitchen table with potatoes, a knife in my hand horses begging for tiny red wormridden apples over an electrified fence a small child tugging at my hands and heart, his voice echoing in my ears i'm sleeping, working, kvetching, stumbling through my days, tired, happy, broken, mad listening to cbc in the left ear and grating my teeth over religious radio in the right flailing my arms about and making funny faces to entertain my son a stewardess asks me to sit down my truck is pounding over gravel, the pacific is in my toes; curled up with my girl, cc'ing mom and practicing edit distance on irc heart aching, singing, chewing my fingernails reading somebodys poem in their blog walking duke on the nude beach feet sticking in the sand

each of these places comes from a step that came before but what was that step? not always the obvious candidate; the bored leafing through magazines, the resume, the job offers, the code or ambition not the phone calls, the late nights, the coffee and the fights not the rolling and mumbling in my sleep uneasy and unwilling to accept the light but simply the moment for what its worth

perhaps the sum over all moments; all the things that could have brought me there did bring me there: it was the girl next door, the bar bet, the special on tv, the obligation and curiosity the horror of loneliness and of free-falling through time the surgery, chance meeting, protest marches, kittens and single-minded monomania the free weekend to sneak away and the improbable as well; the parachute drop, sleepwalking, and being abducted and now being here where all moments are one perhaps it's worth it to consider the moment for what its worth