Many people have stood here
before us and fallen—names still
sewn in the same gray ground now
that was once the province
of spring and its effervescent
kingdom of blossoms.
When we look at a thing, we think
we are seeing it always; we forget
the word for rain, deny the black eyes,
the savage humiliation and abuse
of the still-living Jesus, behold nothing
in those still-blank pages
to which the slightest wind
has blown our notebooks open—
whose song have we been singing
along with all this time
without even realizing?
what malevolence was it
that tricked us into swallowing
those cyanide seeds
of purpose and belief?
How did we ever
come to imagine these
moments belonged to us?
