Why

is this man sitting here weeping

in this swanky restaurant

on his sixty-first birthday, because

his fear grows stronger each year,

because he's still the boy running

all out to first base, believing

getting there means everything,

because of the spiders climbing

the sycamore outside his house

this morning, the elegance of

a civilization free of delusion,

because of the boyish faces

of the five dead soldiers on TV,

the stoic curiosity in their eyes,

their belief in the righteousness

of sacrifice, because innocence

is the darkest place in the universe,

because of the Iraqis on their hands

and knees looking for a bloody button,

a bitten fingernail, evidence of

their stolen significance, because

of the primitive architecture

of his dreams, the brutal egoism

of his ignorance, because he believes

in deliverance, the purity of sorrow,

the sanctity of truth, because of

the original human faces of his wife

and two boys smiling at him across

this glittering table, because of

their passion for commemoration,

their certainty that goodness continues,

because of the spiders clinging to

the elegance of each moment, because

getting there still means everything?

Tony Sutherland