in other words (a condensation of my last post).

Commuting

We understand well that we must hold
our lives up in our arms like the victims
of solitary, terrible accidents,
that we must still hold our lives to their promises

and hold ourselves up to our lives
to be sure always they are larger,
wholer, realer than we ourselves, though we
must carry them.
We on this train with our lives in our laps

are waiting patiently for the next moment
and maybe we will be lifted away by our lives
as are the moments we rise up to hold with us,
or maybe we will just slacken
above our drinks in the club car chatting baseball,
all of us headed
to apply for the same job, all of us qualified,

all of us turning now into snowflakes
too delicate,
yet each holding in itself a tiny
stark particle of darkness
and weight, the heart's cinder
turning over.

-- Denis Johnson