Your Original Sin

What’s that you’ve settled for

What’s that you say

From the library of excuses

You reason away

It seems almost this

But never quite that

As the present escapes

And you look further back

No comfort to take

In that notch on your gun

As you fire in vain

And continue to run

But you say it’s enough

It will then have to do

You repeat what’s been spoken

Never anything new

And you look for a club

Others thinking the same

To plead their excuses

Blaspheme and profane

But alone in the vestibule

A soul fires away

And speaks about life

And its maxims today

His message reoffered

But again you look back

The last sinners you follow

Leaving motherless tracks

Your life now committed

To the lies that you’ve told

And your headstone engraved

With letters that scold

Once eternity beckoned

With your eyes looking up

And drawing strength from it

You drank from its cup

But that story’s been told

You’re alone in the ground

Scant little reminder

You were ever around

As your bones become dust

To be reclaimed by the wind

Those excuses you trusted

—your original sin

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2014)