it is like this in the end.
and the end is long.

it just started so long ago
that all memory traces
of it are gone.

so as the calendar becomes
an enemy who was once a friend,
so too do life's little irks change
as you watch them loom large
over your wrinkled brow.

dancing to a tune we never hear,
we look foolish in our gyrations.

as we each define the road
to Erewhon that Samuel Butler
could only warn us about.

09/20/2005