Like Hours of Rain on Piles of Brown Leaves

If this cloud-gray bell’s so oldno one’s allowed to ring it anymoreis it still a bell? Is the Forbidden City—open to anyone, all day—reallystill forbidden? All mysteries solved,all bodies identified by the patternsof metal in their teeth and I’m drowningin facts and relics, in maps andaudio guides and directions for all the waysyou can get there from here.Severe clear, pilots call it, days whenyou can just see and see and seebut don’t get too lofty here.Only my eye doctor Zak gets to speakof vision. Did you know Tutankhamunhad his heart wrapped in clothand placed in a little wooden boxwhen he died? Who wouldn’tsometimes wish to set your heartaside and close that lid?Call it the grace of distance,a starry sky unseen above the pyramidsburied in sand. Wordsplus temples, that’s how the Chineseget to poetry in their language.And love is happiness said twice.In one day Jay’s ginkgo lost all its leaves—still green, cloven like paper hearts.Do you believe your heartsometimes leaves your bodyand then comes back? The swallows must’ve built their nestbeneath the eaves next door becauseunder and up, under and upall afternoon they keep disappearing.Which leaves only me,a weatherman here to tell youwhat to watch out for, a watercoloristwith my handful of brushes, my cup of water gone cloudy and gray.