Tuesday, May 5, 2020

ALL OVER THE PLACE

The thin needles of cold
rainwater this morning
can go on pelting the lilacs
outside my window as long as they

like for all I care; I am no longer
offended by the relentless,
the indefinite, the endless, or
the all-over-the-place.

Perhaps the world's sadness
is a kind of sustained prayer,
an expression of our gratitude
for the time it took to get this lost

and for the generous time
which is still on offer
to pay off the interest
on the opportunity cost.

Yes, there must be much tenderer
planets out there than this one—
so small and so distant, it would
exhaust these bodies to get there;

but there are also those thoughts
which we know will never leave us
until we've become so
thoroughly exhausted.