Audit Season

'Tis the season for audits in my world. Also, fund mergers and name changes out the etc. It's hard to have any kind of life outside of work right now, to say nothing of a strong online presence here.

Here's something that came out of me today while I was waiting for queries to run. Hope you enjoy it, or at least that it doesn't cause you to go blind.


A life insurance audit
In the midst of tax season
May not seem especially poetic,
With its deep piles of policy files,
Its long hours of arduous reconciliation,
Its days of dreary, plodding research,
Its seemingly endless requirements,
Its Diogenian quest for Truth.
Yet, a poetry is present,
(If only one knows how to look)
Just as there is poetry in the eye
Of a ravenous and unrelenting hurricane
Or the fallen, decaying corpse of a sparrow,
Or an awful sonnet read poorly in a cafe,
Or a half-eaten bowl of stale cornflakes,
Or a tragicomical marriage proposal.
Poetries abound in this life,
Beneath the opacity of the mundane:
Patterns and possibilities that transcend
The here, the now, the ever-present used-to-be
And point to a world peopled by modal auxiliary verbs:
Will, would, can, could, shall, should, may, might--
Words of power and purpose, ideals and ideologies,
That reside in a clean, open space, untainted
By temporality, focused on lasting beauty,
And finding it in everything they touch.