The aspen doing something in the wind
—Robert Hass
This dream again,
where I wander deep halls
in the museum of lost meaning
and the saints are busy conferring about something
in the della Francesca.
A resurrection of cranes
stood aloof and rigid, a black-eyed junco half-way off the frame.
Even the magpies seem to have been struck dumb.
While an approximation of angels held the silent O of their lips
and looked toward heaven—the notion of God doing something
to their souls.
Is there a word for all the unsayable confines of the world?
Something beyond conformity, just this side of dismissal?
As the undercurrent of years
to your life. All those hours
spent comparing
one beauty to another, whether on the canvas or beyond the gallery doors—
the moon doing something in the sky.