“Living here can be compromising”
says Dad to Danny
in a John Irving novel.

Isn’t that our universal truth?

Living here is a compromising series of on-purpose accidents.
Living is compromising
with mortality heavily favored to win out,
maybe short-term,
maybe later.

But these odds
between two categories
switch places
between eight looking toward sixty-four,
and sixty-four looking longingly back toward eight,
measuring all small and large compromises
erupting through serenity
in-between.

Wonder
is just taking a time out
to notice the last clematis blossom
is exactly the same color
as the purple mums
hiding behind her.

Wonder
is taking a moment
as no more or less perfect
just as it is,
a snapshot
between where we have come
since Earth was growing glaciers
to when Earth may, eventually, pass on.

A moment
perfectly balanced
in full-color octaves
of sight
and sound
and smell
and savory taste
of spectral Wonder.