Choosing to Think of It
	
	Today, ten thousand people will die
	and their small replacements will bring joy
	and this will make sense to someone
	removed from any sense of loss.
	I, too, will die a little and carry on,
	doing some paperwork, driving myself
	home. The sky is simply overcast,
	nothing is any less than it was
	yesterday or the day before. In short,
	there's no reason or every reason
	why I'm choosing to think of this now.
	The short-lived holiness
	true lovers know, making them unaccountable
	except to spirit and themselves--suddenly
	I want to be that insufferable and selfish,
	that sharpened and tuned.
	I'm going to think of what it means
	to be an animal crossing a highway,
	to be a human without a useful prayer
	setting off on one of those journeys
	we humans take. I don't expect anything
	to change. I just want to be filled up
	a little more with what exists,
	tipped toward the laughter which understands
	I'm nothing and all there is.
	By evening, the promised storm
	will arrive. A few in small boats
	will be taken by surprise.
	There will be survivors, and even they will die.
	                                 -- Stephen Dunn