so is the truth.
And when the truth
is apple-faced,
snowsuited
toddlers in the park,
crocus tips
poked through dark frost-
stubbled mud,
gutters thick with meltwater
glinting in the sun—
the meaning
is that word
whose pronunciation is begun
in the act of observation
and ends in the
eyeless mind's access
to perfection—dying winter
on the page, as it is
on the planet. This truth
is the nature
of composure itself:
the situation plain, as it
has to be.
