The Best Thing for the Living

​The best thing for the living is life.
Pushups, hikes up Hunter Mountain,
To brighten the blood in all the cap-
Illaries and remember, again,

To climb beyond the flotsam and
The rotting seaweed. You’ll breathe much better,
Your molecules (your gall bladder, 
Your pancreas), the interior letter

Combinations and the global
Meta what-fors become goss-
Amer, ecology of spreading
Worlds, and rocks soft with moss

Even high school, even Edna,
The light is working, I know it, strikes
Of light and thundering clouds,
Collapsing walls, gleaming turnpikes,

All the dark mountains, all
The blocked tunnels, all the rockslide
Bounded roads, the sandstorm
Stinging, blinding the bleary-eyed.

First you need a map and a compass
And a darned good reason for getting there,
You know where, I suppose, where the darning-
Needle is hovering in the air.