Alphabets: Alpha

By Thomas Page

Let’s start at the beginning

Because that is where all things make sense.

Everything has an origin

When looked at by a human eye

Searching for meaning in the start.

It’s where we feel most comfortable

Because the beginning suggests an end—

An end that we know to be true,

To be tested,

To be retold.

We like the beginning because all of the stress has been wrung out.

We like the beginning because it has all of the tears dried out.

We like the beginning because it has all of the messy bits sorted out.

However, we know that the beginning has none of these

If we are truly at the beginning

Because the beginning is noxious to us.

A Greek writer, I believe, said that the future was behind us

Because our past was ahead of us;

Looking back in some mood that we did not recognize at the beginning–

A mood distinctly not human.

We want the once-upon-a-times

We want in-1492-columbus-sailed-the-ocean-blues

We want we-the-peoples

We want the beginnings well made,

Not because it suggests something great about knowing

But that we know something happened

That began certain—

Certain that we can cast the end in harmony with the beginning.

Harmony

A neat little bow on the story

That we know to be true

Despite having a beginning

That did not know its end.