at last, we have still not [2009]

  though we have again found our way back to be

                                        screaming over loud waiting

passing through a forgotten fog
organizing attributes and timelines
sitting down more than then

our knees are not
neither are our backs

(we were here in pegged pants when

this venerable assembly was cropped
but there were far fewer failures then
to witness masks and textbooks dropped)

  not recognizably lost
nor too precisely tired

 
  but much more rotund and slow and dull and bent and wrinkled and filthy and gray

                                                                 "these are not our children

let alone our responsibility"

                                                                 "these people are a waste of our time"

"these are neglectful beings
detached from any sense of honor or duty"

                         Who might notice us here?

What might be said now?
Where might we go next?
How might we know?

Why might we consider this at all?

               because we are, in the end

even as that youthful desperation is dismissed
what and all we were then —
                                                                 simple shirkers
celebrating what has not been accomplished