GO ALONG TO GET ALONG // POEM BY BRUCE MCRAE

Mostly we believe in nothing,

confusing irony with anarchy,

chance and circumstance leading us by the tail,

sometimes considering a cloud

before minds wander into a meadow,

lost in summer's maze

or stood for hours at winter's window.

Sometimes a moment is caught on a nail

and we halt our nervy frittering.

Sometimes the thin man knocks on a wall

and we are startled into life.

For the briefest moment cognition

rattles its chains in the mind's high castle.

And then the rain comes, and then the darkness.

When only the fuzzing of a bug

demands the whole of our attention.

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with poems published in hundreds of magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. The winner of the 2020 Libretto prize and author of four poetry collections and seven chapbooks, his poems have been broadcast and performed globally.