Just because it’s a dream
Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen
A baby just big enough to walk is left outdoors
Until a stranger happens by to make rescue
And the kid was fine
And then you wake up and don’t need to worry
About the responsible parties
And will they be denied custody
And the perilous busy intersection
Of medicine and law
And in an infinite universe
Or an infinite series of what we have hitherto designated the universe
Everything happens that is physically possible
But how far do the laws of physics extend
And aren’t they more like guidelines
In a quantum world in which observation
Might stand as cause
And all phenomena have cause
And what is a phenomenon
Our fondest certainties
Math facts for example
Or the principle of noncontradiction
Are not phenomena
And are not dreams phenomena

That extraordinarily complex song
With its variations and coda tag
Comes from the tufted titmouse
Pretty little bird I’ve never seen
That sings it
Or should I say who sings it every spring
Presumably in perpetuity
But that’s a pipe dream
Considering the flux of species
Certain deciduous trees are yellow in the fall
And again after sleeping months
Yellow in the spring
They will green before summer
But never to the extent of the big spruce
A year-round green so deep
That it verges on indigo
The carpenter bee hovers
Empowered they say
By an army of mitochondria
But do they say she resembles
A fat biker in black leather
Colors emblazoned across the shoulder blades
Do they say I feel hostility
Toward the innocent bug
For boring into my porch
While the gentle rain from heaven
Did more damage than the carpenter bee