What eclectic cleff will signal
the starting point of our apprenticeship
to buoyancy, of shed hours, shot,
shorn in their very own corpses,
of the problem of death reduced
to the talc on a swath of old shale,
the genuine diversion that bullies us
back to the black ice at bottom.
Man must create pursuits in which
his system applies or be killed
throwing apples at swans, knocking
mailboxes over, eating cereal.
The owl has no system. Cold air
collects in the bottom of her nest
and waits there, blank as a witness
destroyed before his testimony.
Does night need, does happiness require
the wilderness of a slogan?
A ghetto with three types of trees?
Not believing in a conscious god,
or men, we heirloom wisdom
in a game that teaches nothing
but time and anger at drowsiness.
Tears are not the shapes we sob in.