I know I’ll be greeted by silence, but still.
No uproar, no fanfare, no applause, but still.
No alarm bells, and nothing alarming.
I don’t expect even a shriveled leaf,
to say nothing of silver palaces and gardens,
venerable elders, righteous laws,
wisdom in crystal balls, but still.
I understand that I don’t walk the moon
in search of ladies’ rings and vanished ribbons.
They pick everything up in advance.
Nothing left to suggest that . . .
Trash, castoffs, peelings, scraps, crumbs,
chips, shavings, shards, bits, pieces.
Of course I only bend over a pebble
that bears no hint of where they’ve gone.
They don’t like leaving signs.
They’re peerless in the art of erasing traces.
I’ve known it for ages: the gift of vanishing just in time,
their divine ungraspability by horns or tail,
by the hem of a robe ballooning in flight.
A hair never falls from their heads that I might snatch.
They’re always one thought smarter,
one step ahead, I can never catch up,
they let me play at being first.
They aren’t there, they never were, but still
I have to keep telling myself,
don’t be a child, stop seeing things.
And whatever just hopped from underfoot
didn’t get far, it toppled over, trampled,
and though it stirs again
and emits a long-drawn muteness,
it’s a shadow—too much my own to point the way.