Momentary by Bruce McRae

Momentary

by Bruce McRae

This moment in time
depends on a suspension of disbelief,
on the unwritten mores and motifs
of the mobile vulgus.

This moment is the last moment,
and the next, and the next to last.
Where you’re in a musty corner
of an ever-expanding universe
and watching the clock grow old, when
you’re a polished stone, desire’s afterglow,
a sum in the long division.

The moments come and go,
minute scenarios as seen from a train,
a cycle of stories about to be told,
an augment of imagination.

This moment is captured in amber.
This moment is stealing a kiss from God.
And this one slips the net,
a golden sturgeon at the head of the rapids.

Time murders truth and trust and toreadors,
this moment a million Buddhas
in the Asia of your mind, a billion instances.
And this moment now, this vacant heart,
this neverness in the grand forever.

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 next book, ‘Boxing In The Bone Orchard’ is coming out in the Spring of 2025 via Frontenac House.