Theme and Variation

(for Erma)

I

Fossil, fuchsia, mantis, man,

fire and water, earth and air—

all things alter even as I behold,

all things alter, the stranger said.

Alter, become a something more,

a something less. Are the reveling shadows

of a changing permanence. Are, are not

and same and other, the stranger said.

II

I sense, he said, the lurking rush, the sly

transience flickering at the edge of things.

I’ve spied from the corner of my eye

upon the striptease of reality.

There is, there is, he said, an imminence

that turns to curiosa all I know;

that changes light to rainbow darkness

wherein God waylays us and empowers.