He did not regret for he had done as he should
and only as he should. Why should he regret?
Life is as death: both have Time,
passing moment by moment and we must choose each moment
and he had chosen all the moments of his life. Perhaps he
had done ill,
but that ill was done to be well, and like it or not
that counts for something. And the well that he had done was
truly well,
and his life had been devoted and worthwhile. He had loved
women and he had loved men
and he had loved his mother and his father and he had loved
his mirror
in which he had looked, purely because he could.

Each morning he woke and as he washed looked in the mirror
and each night before sleep he washed and looked in the
mirror
only because he could. He knew he was not attractive because
it takes joy of life to be attractive and his joy
was not precisely of life but of his life
devoted to order. He believed not in law or justice excepting
as to how they devoted themselves to order,
as he did. It was not narcissism that drew him to the mirror
and indeed the only time he looked in it was when he washed.

And yet he could look in his mirror and that was the
important part
of all his life: that he could look in mirrors. He could
look in them and meet his own eyes,
even when he felt shamed to the core of his core. Had he a
soul?
He had light in his eyes and a beat to his heart; yes, he
had a soul,
the mirror told him this. It told him what to do, moment by
moment,
and when he was uncertain he thought of the mirror,
of the curve of his eyebrows and the shape of his nose,
of the twist in his lips and the light in his eyes,
and he did what he knew was order.

Until one day he met a man who was his mirror
Living, breathing, stealing; nothing more than scum,
a bit of trash to be hauled away. But that was not the end
of that story,
Because life is lived moment by moment
and in the end it was the death of him. But that was all
right
Because in the end and to the end
he had lived by the mirror, moment by moment.

And the river was very like glass and silver
With a bridge for a washbasin.

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