It was

and then it wasn't.  I mean the nimbus around the heart
that grows and shrinks depending on whether or not 
the mood of the world is dry sauna heat or bubbling lava. 
I say world, and yet I also mean closer by, like the moment 
before flame-throwers disrupt the evening and then the split 
second after, ennui performing dangerous bonfires on play-
ground grass. I make no claim on visions, prophetic or otherwise.  
Marcus Aurelius tells me not to imagine my whole life at once.
I admit there's some wisdom to that. We do know the general
end but not the middle details. But sometimes it's the most 
unpredictable things that lay me low. For instance, the sawdust 
left at the bottom of the cereal box. An entire underworld 
of tannins reminding me I have not raised a glass often enough.
Why, I ask myself, as wee rabbits bound across the yard.