You know how the world comes at you like that?
You’re driving down some tree-lined street
with Vivaldi or Corelli
lilting their way from the radio.
The sun is casting prisms on the leaves,
the leaves easy in their fall.
All questions have quieted.
You are convinced that even the asphalt is happy
to be what it is: solid, stoic, the backbone of a day.
Up ahead the next three lights are green,
and you are passing the school yard at St. Paul’s,
where all the kids in their blue and green uniforms
are bright angels, bearers of light.
There goes Stone Way Cleaners where they are steaming and pressing,
steaming and pressing just for you. The world is stuck
on go, proceed, avanti. No one could imagine
how enlightened you’ve become
in the cabin of your car, clarity at the wheel,
on the rim of tears, with your velocity of awe,
your rapid rolling toward some small truth—on and on like that.