Analysis of Your Original Sin

What’s that you’ve settled for
What’s that you say
From the library of excuses

You reason away
It seems almost this
But never quite that
As the present escapes
And you look further back
No comfort to take
In that notch on your gun
As you fire in vain
And continue to run
But you say it’s enough

It will then have to do
You repeat what’s been spoken

Never anything new
And you look for a club

Others thinking the same
To plead their excuses

Blaspheme and profane

But alone in the vestibule

A soul fires away
And speaks about life
And its maxims today
His message reoffered
But again you look back
The last sinners you follow

Leaving motherless tracks

Your life now committed

To the lies that you’ve told
And your headstone engraved
With letters that scold

Once eternity beckoned
With your eyes looking up
And drawing strength from it
You drank from its cup
But that story’s been told
You’re alone in the ground

Scant little reminder

You were ever around

As your bones become dust
To be reclaimed by the wind

Those excuses you trusted

—your original sin

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2014)