A Man Alone Redux Poem by Daniel Brick

I have an obscure feeling
of being protected...
No one has stepped out of
the crowd, identified himself
or herself as my protector, and
then slipped back into that
crowded anonymity, leaving behind
nothing more than an brief echo.
It's enough to make me ever alert
to my need for help. I keep my eyes
focused on the middle distance
through which both peril and rescue
sweep into my life. Perhaps, perhaps
there are compassionate eyes watching
my bold strides through experience.
Are they aware of obstacles, hard realities
of accident and fate, that proliferate
like exposed roots and dislodged rocks
on a walking path, threatening the walker
who is staring at trees, flowers, birds,
things of beauty that distract him from dangers?

It's as if I were traveling
over a roiling sea in a ship inadequate
for such a stormy passage. As long as
the weather stays fair and fair winds
billow the sails, the ship will reach
its destination. But should that fair
weather vanish into storm, direst peril
will leave me helpless, prayerful, doomed.

I am neither relieved nor frightened
by that fiction. It is simply
an assessment of possibility a wary traveler
makes for his peace of mind. As we age
from youth to seniority, and feel our past
confidence no longer resilient, some aspect
of daring retreats into the soul, and
curls into a deep animal sleep, dreaming
only of safety and rest. Some take refuge
in faith, and declare, 'I know that
my redeemer liveth.' Others adopt a stoic
sense of their personal fate within
the Mystery of Fate, and achieve a nobility
of spirit. Still others confidently plan daily
endeavors, without recourse to faith or fate.

Aging is the only mathematics I can comprehend.
It demands no calculations, no right or
wrong answers, no effort at mastery. Everyone
excels at this discipline just be being mortal.
It is a radically simple addition of one year
after another which we trust to go on and on
with no subtraction. At some unknowable point
death sweeps into our life and takes each of us
into its furious grasp. All we know is that
each of us dies a man or a woman alone. This is
the final stage of human knowledge. And in a flash
we will realize how this knowledge attains this grace:
each of us burns up all the energy of their life,
and casts a fierce light against the darkness.