When I was young, ascending,
high on this Work,
I believed I would one day
be old and still flying. 

This deep into
my aging, though,
I am dismayed
and earthbound,

tethered to the heavy stone
of Work Already Done
because living’s become a windstorm
and I am lightweight and weak.

Here I am full of folly,
thinking the Work So Far
no doubt will save me; 
robbed of the foresight to see the paradox:

how much
still within me
could die with me
if I do not let go.

Something new in the Work
is screaming for birth,
but I dare not let it out.
I do not know how

to let it break it free
of my decay
without dying myself
when it escapes.

Then again, maybe
the moment of my death,
when the Work bursts free
of my shell-shocked, brittle frame,

will be the first moment
the Work will exist on its own.
Isn’t that enough,
you ask?

I whisper,“no, it is not,”
but if I have this right,
no one will hear that over 
the roar of the Work’s ascent.