The Reckless Ledger

The day all debts are paid,
no one will find the old account book.
What was owed in life’s trade
will be seized by the fever.
 
The interest still unpaid—
in that kingdom without accounts,
no one knows what remains,
no one keeps the ledger
of man’s debt to man.
 
It lasts till the very end.
What began at the start
will close at the close—
its own grim mantra.
 
Debt is a heavy load,
hard to carry on the road.
You must walk it without flesh,
buy death one day with a coin.
 
He who understands this weight
knows the ghost-labour it costs—
to work from start to finish for nothing,
to balance the sums at last
and find them still unbalanced.
 
Then you will know—
not a mill’s blind ox,
but a body that turned
a few slow circles
on the gallows beam.