Extravagance

A famous poet wrote in a famous essay
this bit of advice: spend it all, don't save it

for a day that might never come—
which can mean any of these things: 

your best work isn't holding off from your reach,
rare fruit ripening at the end of a long branch; or

you think the options in the present moment
might be upstaged by something grander,

bigger, shinier—if you just waited a little more. 
She wasn't just talking about art, was she?

There's so much evidence around you 
of what could be called judicious thought,

forethought, afterthought; or maybe just
a miserly spirit. "Good plates" still wrapped 

in tissue, gifts you were given by friends 
no longer in this world; a letter from a once 

upon a time love you never answered. Clearly 
the world is always changing, not even mildly 

inclined to take your sensibility into account.
Before you know it, it's high summer again

and the trees are filled with the high humming
of cicadas. They've awakened from a long 

pause, an interlude. Should their bodies become 
spore-infested so parts fall away, they won't even 

notice. They'll keep at it for hours, leaning wholly now 
into that old, blind frenzy to mate before they die.