Lost One, Kept One

I lived a couple decadesin one doomscape:worrying love would failto sustain us, worryingbeloveds would dieof breathlessness or selfrelease.Now I knowthe world will soonrefuse us all. I think with panicof my children’s children,or their children, or will my owneven bother? I hopenot. Let the lineend with us. BecauseI doubt we’ve got fiftyyears before the sufferingconverts even relatively genialhumans into cutthroatsand the books and moviesI can’t bear to reador watch come trueand having saved moneywon’t matter, having readanything won’t matter,having recycled, havingxeriscaped, having closed the tapwhile brushing, packed lunches,used thermoses notStyrofoam, havingfelt guilty about plasticbags, having returnedmost bags to the grocery-store bin,having sent shoesto Angola, having spokensometimes and remained silent too among perpetratorsof market egregiousness,having owned stock,held on for the long game,having taught Oppen,Neidecker and her mops, Berrymanand his juniors and lonesomeoutcries and having lovednow and then the wrongpeople (Suzanne, I owe youan apology—) and having saidto the other momsThis is a parenting strategy,letting small childrenwander and fight and fall,This is the cultivation as they bledor annoyed more attentive parentsof independence, having planteda weak purple jacarandathat just wouldn’t growbut nonetheless held on,having pulled over to helpthe cat who then diedin the car and let go, of course,brand new soiled station wagon,having put my handsinto the earth where my fatherwas ash turned in with the soil,pachysandra, elegant pine—having donated to save the baybut sometimes used cleanserswith detrimental pHs,having grown old enoughto want sun like a honeysuckle,despite cancer and spotting,sun, in a good way?Having sat weepingover articles on the deathof the oceans, sailorson routes poisonedby everything, who see garbage infinities, who see no fishes,who blame spills or overfishingor warming or all of the above.Having minimizedadditives, having installedor acceded to lo-floshowerheads, having bought organic,having declined Walmart,McDonalds, for years, having appalledsome and disappointed others(too far left, too mainstream),having made pals in long voter lines,marched on Washington,signed petitions, written my congressmen—everything futile, everythingoutright doomed.What do I do if stillI am moved. Notoptimistic, not fooled,even by my own desireto be fooled, to be hopeful—those years of false dramaturn out not to have been false:one of them diedand one didn’t, and here we are.Having lost one, having kept one.To have and to hold.Having will kill us, the greed,the too-manys.So: hold.Hold me backfrom the brink of recognition.This the only footingin hope, onlystay.