* * *

 

 

 

Nothingness unseamed itself for me too.

It turned itself wrong side out.

How on earth did I end up here—

head to toe among the planets,

without a clue how I used not to be.

 

O you, encountered here and loved here,

I can only guess, my arm on yours,

how much vacancy on that side went to make us,

how much silence there for one lone cricket here,

how much nonmeadow for a single sprig of sorrel,

and sun after darknesses in a drop of dew

as repayment—for what boundless droughts?

 

Starry willy-nilly! Local in reverse!

Stretched out in curvatures, weights, roughnesses, and motions!

Time out from infinity for endless sky!

Relief from nonspace in a shivering birch tree’s shape!

 

Now or never wind will stir a cloud,

since wind is exactly what won’t blow there.

And a beetle hits the trail in a witness’s dark suit,

testifying to the long wait for a short life.

 

And it so happened that I’m here with you.

And I really see nothing

usual in that.