Light skims across the tops of trees
Shadow slices across below
From the houses and other trees

Too much consciousness we calculate outcomes
Slaves to experience and sooner or later
Out of fear or greed experts in the doctrines

And yet the body febrile and importunate
Will in the end have its say
Will set down the content of the creeds

The neighbors smile and wave as they should
Some withhold smile or wave
As if you don’t belong in this or any universe

The sunset my sunset this remembered rainbow
This outcropping with rounded shoulders
This prismatic glint of tears

Girls intone elaborate chants of their own device
Boys induce dizziness or a head rush
Hoping to start gurgling poetry

Daybreak pricks the little songbird
And hurts it into song and I hear it
As do the elf the giraffe the trilobite