Defrost

I’ve tried to stay away
from easy respites
as a penance
to cleanse myself
of habitual indulgences

It’s strange
how life freezes,
yet time moves on
anachronistically
so tangled that it
does not matter –
past, present or future

Images flash
linger on, and disappear
leaving no trace …
music plays on,
in elevator rhythm,
its starting or stopping
equally uneventful

I resign, accepting defeat
and embrace indulgences
long abandoned — if
one trusts the calender — for
it seems just yesterday

And life
seems to return –
the ritualistic familiarity
that cannot sustain
the sublime, or
the divine,
just the banal
with a touch
of make-believe