(January 1, 2000)

One—zero—and nothing happened, or the nothing
that might have didn’t: power and light, the track
of time, haven’t failed you yet: there ought

to be a lesson in it, of entrusting
the heart to the day and the hour, not turning back-
ward with dread or forward with regret: your heart

endures, and beats, zero-one, zero-one, and the soul,
whatever you have done, endures: it too
prepared, almost without you, for the turning

of the time, calling out, then waiting, like the call
of Being, then its shadow, asking you
choose one, though you felt unready, even half yearning

for total system collapse, but let it be said,
there came a turning, and you lived instead.


Nitzavim, Deuteronomy 29:9–30:20