Forest For The Trees

Say, for the sake of argument,
that one day it all slips into place
and works the way it used to work
or works the way the mythology
insists it works:

say that you and your longtime love
fall into joyful fucking like first time teenagers
but with the benefit of experience
and deep knowledge of each other
and every day after, you remain that way;

say you save money and retire well
and travel and become in late years
learned and wise about human kindness
and as you travel you become beloved
and every day after, you remain beloved;

say that you live suddenly in the place
of refined definitions where freedom
is a free thing and all have it and live it
and honor it and dance on it and in it
and every day after is a dance within a dance;

say it and say it and say it, someday
a myth and a story and a tale will unfold
exactly as they are supposed to
and the morals they bear will all be the same:
every day, there’s a chance for it all to go well

and what we say of why it doesn’t
is as much a myth giving shape to atoms 
and energy as any story of happily ever after
or triumph over pain and wrong; and every day
we choose the path from our words

to the next day’s words, and so 
the grove of happening is sown and grown,
the forest we will walk through without noting
any of the trees we planted ourselves
if we don’t agree to speak of them every damn day.