Moving Beyond the Margins

Lifting the latch,

moving beyond the margins

of one’s own doors

unfolds a greater paradise-

a river, a place of many voices,

travelers drifting along

in the crests and falls of waves.

None is timeless, all historical.

Everything in the end passes.

We desire to be liked, contemporary.

My words are nothing new. Creation-

an imitation of what already exists,

already admired. To be contemporary

is to rise through the scab of the past,

like fire in the mountain, deepest heat

born to carry a new idea

into the rarified air.