is to have been given
all the answers
in advance.
What I get instead
are platitudes,
highlights,
spot-lit,
slowly rotating
carousels of facts—
not collected,
but selected prose.
And how tempting it is
to punch in
the cheat code;
to let one thing,
not illuminate, but
stand in for another;
for dessert to take
the place of dinner.
But no, there's not
an app for that.
The map is not
the territory—
no matter
how intricate
or lovingly rendered.
Facts are not objects;
truth is not beauty;
and beauty
is something more
than order.
