Certainties and Uncertainties: a poem

Here is another poem tied to 9-11:

CERTAINTIES AND UNCERTAINTIES
(After Attila Jozsef, “To Sit, To Stand, To Kill, To Die”)

To drag this rake across wet leaves,
to scrub the crud from the bottom of this pan,
to wake as sunlight breaks through the gap in the shades,
to worry that all this could burn out, break,
all in the blink of an eye,
to pray that it won’t, that this can continue,
that these loves, this life can live on,
to wait for the telephone’s electronic ring,
to wander in the vast tundra of the mind,
to catch lighting bugs in jars,
to stare in disbelief as jets crash
and the towers crumble,
to know the calendar pages still turn,
to wander the curves of your hips
and the crevices of your soul,
to capture your queen and move on your king,
to reboot your computer after it’s crashed,
to answer nasty e-mails
or just delete them unread,
to forget,
to crest upon you like a wave in your mind,
to leave and never return,
to only know the moment
and guess the future,
to look these uncertainties in the eye
and laugh or cry but
always to keep it going, to get along
in this, this uncertain world of ours.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet