But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful:

for he had great possessions.

            ­– Matthew 19:22

What if I started here       if this

Were the beginning what        except

The differences were small        and kept

Myself       no not the differences

Keeping      and kept some most of what

Before or always I had done

In the midst of winter winter gone

If after this my life were not

So long as long it might have been

If I had spent it running and

Not sitting had not kept        each hand

In a position I had when

I was a child in school I learned

In typing class        to know the letters

Not looking    mine       onlie abettors

If now and after now I turned

Around away from gazing at

The past imagining    I’m look

-ing to the future turned       to look

At the void that is the future but

Emptier than a void        in which

Even the emptiness I’m thinking

Of now will disappear     mine     sinking

Into the future now       its sit

-uation how fast sinking how

Deep it has sunk how long until

It’s gone my any thinking I’ll

Never not even        when I know

Know     but what’s life if not perfect

-ing long a void       if not aban

-doning it life      to have again

From which no sorrow can subtract