How We Look Like The Rest Of Those We Knew. Poem by RIC BASTASA

we look at ourselves
after we run for miles and stop
for a while by the side of a
peaceful pond along our way
back home where we have
seen the lines in our foreheads
the curves of our jaws
the sunken features of our cheeks

and then we have changed
from quizzical to a certainty
as we begin to carve our
hopes on that mirror:

not all bread cures our hunger
not all water cures our thirsts
not all in us can be sold like some
kind of properties that can give us
a profit for the day

we reflect back then when
all experiences are teachers
when fear of everyday life has
actually made us live for the better
when certainty is finally abhorred
when life becomes so real
as it slips from our fingers when
we finally dip our finger to the
body of that water that
finally erased who we are
and how we look like
the rest of those we knew.