Remains

This morning I was listening to interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Minneapolis bridge collapse. As seems to always be the case, their thoughts, once past the logistics of escape, turn inevitably to the providence of fucked up events like this.

It's natural for humans to search for meaning, otherwise...

Well, it's very frightening, otherwise, isn't it, and let's just leave it at that for now. I have no desire to criticize anyone who walks away from shit like that and is seeking a little psychic comfort.

But this wonderful poem popped into my head, as I was listening to them, and I thought I might share it with you. It's really a wonderful poem. It's called "The Post-Rapture Diner," and it was written by Dorothy Barresi:

A thought you cannot call back
and empty shoes like
exclamation points
on every road from here to Tuscon.

Who will knock their boots against the doorjamb
now
and enter shyly?
Who will peel the vegetables?
Pie domes cloud over. Old sugar

makes a kind of weather in there—
webbed, waiting.
Tiers of doughnuts go woozy with collapse.

We deed and we will.
We bow to what providence we understand
and cede the rest: our lies and doubts, our human,
almost necessary
limitations. Probably I should have,

we whispered more than once, shaking our heads.
Probably. Now what’s left of the past
hangs in a walk-in freezer,
fat-shrouded, bluing,

and all we know of the present
is a spatula in a coffee can
on a cold grill, pointing to heaven.