vocational penance

Photo by Mathias Reding on Pexels

there’s a moral ambiguity
to surviving in a fallen world
when you feel you have to do a thing,
burn yourself out as a sort of religious penance
because you’ve strayed so far from the virtuous
because you were more than a little spiteful
but mostly because you thought you could do it all…
there’s recompense for trying to go about it your own way
for rejecting the cold glass world, for trading time in the box
for the hidden textures of your mind and heart…
no one can get everything, so why do you expect
every stranger you meet to appreciate you for who you are?
we all need our bad faith to melt away…
don’t forget, it’s restless anxiety and uncertainty
that keeps the puritan clinging to the grindstone
…let go…

Franco Amati 2025