Spoiler Alert

by Jim Bishop

Still, for the homely and the glorious alike, the time comes.
For the children in dark doorways, seen in passing, their
shadowy keepers glimpsed through curtained windows.
For the famous and infamous at the height of their acclaim,
their names even now on our lips.  For the holy, the hidden,
the profane.  The magnificent and mysterious animal forms,
the wild birds in spectacular migration, even the dog there
dreaming on the carpet, who we call by name. The time comes.

                                                             And now, myself an elder,

to have arrived amongst such as these: dragonflies
along the stream the likes of which I’ve ridden ecstatically,
terrifyingly, in a dream.  This beast at my feet who crushes
bones in his jaws, takes offered treats with such delicate
restraint from my hand.  And the little girl the other day,
her mother waiting her turn to be served, who twirled and
twirled behind her for the sheer dizzy joy of it.  I feel near
swooning myself at times into the exquisite unfolding of a
backyard lily yes so gloriously arrayed that passes in a single
day. Remind myself, attend.  Attend.