You will have done (lux aeterna Instagrammatici)

The trees down by the creek are backed by a screen of white fog that blackens their bare branches. It is quiet and damp. It will be a stormy day, according to reports. But at this moment you are blissfully unaware of the fate of the day.

You.

"You will have done this," I tell myself, "you will have stood such a moment inside of yourself, you will have become an artist, you will have enshrined it: the calm stronger than exhilaration."

You. You all. The ones who are gone.

You will have done.

But Grammar (the loyal opposition) points the question: will? What future for them?

So I must grapple with "will have done," this angel of the Lord, while a white cloud of you all grows and blackens the branches of the bare trees.

You will have done. You will have done. I think I can. I think I can.

I thought I could. But. Future dissolves into modality. The grammatical angel is gone; I limp away.

And. Here we are: You and me and the bare branches of trees by the creek in the white fog. Imagining that we are a Low Country Instagram painter, enshrining a calm stronger than exhilaration.

And yet been discontented with it because: what comes next?

You will have done.

When the storm comes. As it did. As it does. As it will.