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By Tom Lavoie
Addition rules our early years
when "x = a + b + c" and on and on,
or so it seems, heading towards infinity.
We add friends, then lovers,
addresses and phone numbers,
new directions, new views through
kitchen windows, thinking this
will go on forever.
And then one day, we awaken sore,
or just open a door, limp suddenly,
and without knowing it
arrive at the center of our life.
And for that moment
we are balanced there
as on a fulcrum
where "x = y," nothing more, nothing less,
on the edge
of a memory perhaps misplaced,
mislaid, forgotten.
But the old math kicks in
with its surprising contradiction:
that while age may take away our past additions,
we awaken each day to dawn,
to gasp anew at that view,
the sun through the window,
still bright, still true.
The old made new.
© Tom Lavoie 2007
Page last updated: 12/6/2007 11:29
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