when in the end you have a life that gives
and drives brute hammers through the wailing wall,
the wonder asks "how did you stay?" but you
refuse to answer, taught to breathe
its cosmic ripples, strung like monks in cells.
you will recall the joy of seeing through,
of blue transparencies and salmon-colored graves,
of latent pangs in any zany joy 
that fill the nostrils with such puzzled strains.
still sitting on a rose, i will grant
your dimming eye the painted tree in bloom
of books and chairs till you steal the one
creation found done and all
begins to wither but the paint, 
the clothes cut by rainbows of words.
in your enchanted way, you groan true - 
when all remains, what difference is the light?

2.19.99