Evening, early June,
sweetly tired from the day’s work,
lazed out on the back porch with friends,
just finished with dinner
(asparagus and spinach fresh from the garden;
venison backstrap
smoky and rare),
watching the sunset
luster the ocean,
stiff-winged swifts
etching the air,
a full moon rising like a fever of pearl
huge above the redwoods,
I’m seized by the realization
I’ll never understand
the origin and destination of the universe,
the meaning or purpose of life,
none of the answers
to the great questions of being,
and probably not much else.
And that knowledge, at last,
making me happy.