3008. MOVES WITH THE TIDE

MOVES WITH THE TIDE
(flagellants and mendicants)
Goes where it will go, goes where it
wishes to go, does what it is told,
disappears upon command. All those
things at once. A killer unemployed.
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She is at the stove, now I see, cooking
eggs. Standing by the burner, little
in a robe, staring out the window while
things simmer. It must be morning again.
Nothing new, that. They do seem to recur.
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There is not much, really, we can salvage from
our own lives, at the ends of our days. It all
has just already happened, seemingly vague,
yet real - and that is, simply, that. We may
remember a few things; or may not. Old
memory falters; that's all they say now.
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Ages ago Flagellants used to roam the
land. In Europe, anyway; from place to place
they'd walk, berating themselves and, everywhere,
seeking Penance. Weirdly enough, not for any
specific things they'd done, more just for being
alive. Or having been. Such an obfuscating presence,
this crazy, stupid trait - beseeching God's forgiveness
for things you had nothing, really, to do with. An odd
and concrete perversion of all Creation. Many men
died, of their own lonely intentions. Leaving children
and wives, and all the rest. Yet leaving , it was
understood as well, one happy and satisfied God.