And what we remember we know is lost

1.
On the ride home from attempting to help
put siding on a garage


I watched the houses of the city pass
seeing them as the work of humans with various levels of skill and interest
in the job and the city which had till then seemed as if carved out of stone
as if grown like trees from the earth, strong and true,
seemed crooked and fragile as the wrinkles on old skin

and so I thought, this is the world that we have
which it is perhaps better not to scrutinize

2.
cutting back the sod that had overgrown the walk
i reached down to the roots of the weeds
and felt the little hands of ants and beetles clutching me there
as if begging me not to shatter the subterranean ways
interlaced gracefully with the roots

and I thought it was like God
who wishes me no ill, but must keep things on line
and ordered and a whole city might fall

3.
the preacher does improvisation
making leaps and strange steps connected by only the force of motion
like a child stepping toward waiting arms

the arms, as we listen, are the arms of that ending
which has the novelty and beauty of death
which is also called perfection
a perfect thought the arms that come suddenly
to enwrap you, like death to carry you away
only for a moment the thought that will never come again
perfect as the stepping Christ
child of which there is no account

because it lies where it is impossible to retrace steps
because it is not there, but perhaps is where all parting ways
lead and ends are lost, where the ways cannot be named
because the city was called up from the rock and roots and stream.