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Untranscendental Meditation
"Am I living Right?" I ask myself
every morning, like a Christian saint,
but my inner voice, unlike a saint's,
replies "Who knows? Your guess is good as mine."
It's ignorant as I am of the truth--
not Truth, which tells all Faithful souls that heaven
costs all of their material possessions,
but small "t" truth, which non-believers seek,
on how to make the most of time on earth
until death rots the body into compost.
I don't meditate about life's meaning,
but on how to increase savings income
now that I've missed my chance to make a million
by cashing bank CD's and buying e-stock.
According to the Chairman of the Fed,
real estate's the safest speculation,
but should I trade my Dutch Colonial
in a declining mid-town neighborhood
for a suburban rancher or bi-level
twice as large that costs three times as much
as this house which I've lived in eighteen years
either from contentment or inertia
that's going down in price instead of up--
a very, very slowly sinking ship
whose frayed, upholstered chairs and sofa fit
my body like old clothes, whose Sears brass lamps
are richly glazed with patinas of tarnish.
No one cherished bits of the Titantic
except its precious lifeboats when it sank,
but what if it had recrossed the Atlantic
decade after decade, growing shabby
gradually, just like an old hotel?
Supposed it leaked just slightly more than pumps
could keep up with? Would you abandon ship?
Or would you listen to your inner voice
telling you to steer a steady course
towards the unseen, but ever-nearer coast
that you've been steaming steadily towards--
it must be just beyond the dim horizon.
"Sit tight, Captain! Steady as she goes!"
That's what I wish would echo in my brain
when I ask for directions every morning--
or else "Abandon ship! We're going down!"
Instead, blood pounds this anwer in my brain:
"What difference does it make? You're going to drown."
Richard Cecil (Click for bio.)