NOW OR FORGET IT

Now
is the conscious clarity,
the poignant pen dipped in our second's well,
writing where our heartbeat bends
feeling every thought expressed before
in the prickly bite of reflection's winds.

Birth and renewal,
vigor and frailty,
collect in collages of firework fancy,
dancing failure's skeletons beguile their fears,
but it is all a fleeting soliloquy of vanity
if our face we see in the mirror
never ages with lucid gazes,
serving itself over to a mental morgue
drinking excuses formaldehyde
waiting to sign on the dotted line
of a grant deed to a plot.

Today is our womb of possibilities,
virginal and undefiled,
if in our soul we are still learning and growing,
instead of digging holes
for hiding from tomorrow's worries
over doubt's mirages.