Do not fear the immutable delay
that, though quiet, drones through all.
Imagine it is as a tightening loop,
gathering spiral of a black pebble.
Your pockets, eyes, mouth, will
never be empty of these cabochons, the shade
of the pupil is what remains after
the struck match has finished burning.
You can observe it, sometimes, in a more actual sense:
say, a change in the wind, deracinated, noticed
because so urgently rootless, yet also here
and silver and palpably quaking.
To clamber down from the firmament,
wanting to do something about it, grants citizenship
to the wind: chairs and tables,
paper bags, dustflung.
Because they exist without us, most places,
remote elsewheres enduring, wholly
oblivious to the fact we’ll never
make the plane.
Header Image by Egor Myznik on Unsplash.