Bruce McRae
Making Hay
Quoting Marcus Aurelius
won’t buy the baby a new bonnet.
A cadre of amanuenses
doesn’t get you from here to there.
Japes and jests and assorted hijinks
cannot, will not, guarantee success,
as an audience of sotted houseguests
will all-too-readily attest,
they being captive to the moment
and peccadilloes of your writerly resolve.
Rather, the night goes on forever.
We engineer said slopes and slants,
gathering our resources
while yodelling into the wild blue yonder,
then carry on with the task at hand,
the fullest measure of persistence.
Well-mouthed, every story ends
in malaise and lament.
That is to say eventually,
the ones listening preferring it would rain
or the moon fell down, their nerves tried
and resolution sorely tested.
Other work by Bruce McRae