Redemption

Standing on precipice, dancing on the brink
Of chasm much too wide. We will never agree.
We look, Alice in the hall, for bottled drink;
For key to fit the door that sets us free.

In our standing leer we're looking for a sign
Of how the tumor that is our heart can find a cure.
Fit our formless fears to an outcome benign
Or for the strength to make us pain inure.

Fidelity plays with us on record ruined by wear,
Saying "Do you remember?" with hiss and scratch.
Costs are tally-marked with moss-backed care,
The sums not lied about, but colored to match.

As the sea gives up its dead we rise to look around,
Ahab's children shine, fretworked souls repairing to astound.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~