DISPLACEMENT

A.

We’ve come so far,

We say,

But we have further to go.

In physics, we’re taught that

Displacement & distance differ.

Displacement is merely the space between

Where an object starts & where it ends.

A ______________ B

But distance is the total length

Of the path an object takes:

A B

How far Sisyphus pushes that rock

Up its murky mound,

As well as the route it rolls down again.

A poem & how it runs

Through the body before leaving

Us something slightly more than we were.

Simply put, the rise & fall matter,

Conjoined, not canceling,

Expansion, not erasure.

It is only then that we can understand

How our distance from our worst selves

Is centuries & yet

We have not been displaced.

Yes.

We have gone further than we’ve come.

---

* * *

A part of ourselves is still barbed

& barbaric, a wired complex of greed.

There is also the element that is

Guided by good,

The way our blood

Is bracketed by veins.

According to legend,

There are two wolves inside us:

One half that must be fought

& one that must be fed.

One that must fall

& one that must never fail.

B.

That wretched summer

We were distempered as dogs,

But to be disturbed is to be moved,

Pushed toward progress.

Our disgust is a measurement

Of distance, a distaste for what was.

It is to grasp that we must never go back.

History is fractured & fractal.

Even when we’ve succumbed,

We have not surrendered.

We might fall.

We might rise,

Distant but undisplaced,

Traveling further than we shift.

What matters most is that

We find each other

In the lit-up space between.