347. Alas and Heralded

Alas and heralded
and the little things
we eat and the little
things we eat today.

Sun seems like a
little thing itself, sun
seems like a little
light to us today.

Night seems like
something we might
even eat, even in
the simple daylight.

A handful of, a hand-
ful of, just a handful
of might be enough to help
them through the night.

Kids carry pails of sand
to the beach because they
don’t know what to do with
the sea rolling up to them.

I have lost a pile of
dust and the broom
to pick it up, but still
there is plenty to find.

Guesses carry the sails
forward, and the boats
slip over the lake; it seems
there’s something blue below.

The sky is made of blue
construction paper and
the glue to hold it up,
and it all works so well.

Could be a road
that moves or a car
that moves over it,
or could be us.

You may remember
the little ones
as your children or
the children they’d be.

I am given to bouts
of exaggeration, and I
am taken by the signs
of that same amplification.

There is a music,
unrecognized, in the
gurgling of the refrigerator,
and its humming.

Would you be surprised
by the constant refrain
that you hear when
you are sleeping?

The sound of birds
does not wake us each day,
nor is it sunlight; our
minds wake us from ourselves.

The tunnels of night reach
into dreams, into
the premonition of dreams—
we know they are coming.

I would sleep if I were not
writing, and I would write
if I were not thinking,
and would see if not sleeping.

Halfway through a thought
I am caught up by the idea
of another thought, even
one I have not yet formed.

Cartons cannot hold a
human whole, but cartons
can hold the most precious
remains of that human.

It is not time that ever
leaves us; it is time that
accumulates and what it
accumulates into is us.