It is nothing but something
you remark on, like the weather or
the predilection of the falling
swallow, the drag of the moon,
the drawl of the tide. Each day
the collected works rather than
the greatest hits, played and replayed
until the world skips and pops
about the stylus of your
sentience, the one and the next one
a story told in leaf and bloom,
this once and future form
an average taken for a rule,
a mirror that meets its measure
in your eyes, some native
radiance or the sturdy
affirmation of beauty’s boundaries.
So we turn these words through
our salted fields and haunted
gardens, taking them as thorn or
rose, watering away at one
wolf or the other, the story only
alive in the telling, each of us
both gossip and gospel.
