No One to Take It

I kept what there was of it.
Not much.
A few years that seemed to matter,
set down as if they might add up.

There is nowhere to lay them.
No altar.
No one asking for them back.

The past does not roar.
It doesn’t do anything at all.
It sits where it has always sat,
unmoved by being remembered.

Time goes on in its usual way.
Seconds pass without notice.
Nothing burns in them.
Nothing is kept.

You breathe because you do.
Not for any reason.

There was a thought once
that something watched,
that what you gave up
was taken,
and set somewhere it would last.

That has gone.

What happens is simpler.
Days wear out.
The body follows.

You don’t enter anything larger.
You remain where you are
until you aren’t.

The future is not shaped.
It arrives without intention.
What comes
comes.

You can call that order
if you need a word.
Or chance.
It makes no difference.

There is no thread.
Nothing woven.
No design that includes you.

You do what you can
while you can.

That is all.

No voice answers.
No meaning gathers.

Only this:
the fact of having been here
for a while,
and the fact
that it does not continue
in any way
you can recognize.