Strange to think of losing it all —
the time-mosaic our life has put
together from remembered and forgotten
moments. Or the body, keeping
nothing, not even the pleasure our shoulders
feel pulling on the soft shirt on a cool
morning. From the dark rootedness
of childhood, we have struggled so hard
and long for standing, integrity,
a life, against the odds, worth living.
Can we hold in mind that we go back
where all those things we built our world with
come from? That surrendering to loss
is the price of entry into everything?

THOMAS R. SMITH’s recent books are MEDICINE YEAR (Paris Morning Publications), a collection of poems, and POETRY ON THE SIDE OF NATURE: WRITING THE NATURE POEM AS AN ACT OF SURVIVAL (Red Dragonfly Press), an essay with poems.  He lives in western Wisconsin and teaches at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.