The trees are always shaking
Yet we pretend that we don't feel;
It's the way we take it to something it's not
That makes us stand uneasy
(Not like those pines who wear their weathering
Like their golden eyes, as a necessary price
For what they carry: their life, open to be toured,
Wisdom blown like sleeves beyond our words).
While we continue confused, so hidden
We don't think of ourselves as real.
We claw at that first dart of identity
To pin hopes of honesty on
But the shroud, like persistent cloud cover,
Never lifts, the wind buffets and fills
Our clothes, our purpose is tossed like a stone
We may, so we hope, claim again
With generous mathematics and the tenacity
Of the condemned. All the while the world outside
Won't waver from its tasks; it knows to fill
The cistern up, without being asked,
And does not question humble things,
Like why the sky won't yield,
It merely lives in what's-not-passed,
Those self-sustaining springs.
