And So, and: Rumination #8,758

AND SO

we have come into rooms with nothingin them

and shut their no-doors tightbehind us. All we can see

at this momentis sunlight

on leaves, on grass,on late-summer weeds

beside the road, their fragrant headsdepending. And the insects’

shrill voices themselvesseem green, seem

sun-drenched: Ohhow do we go on

from this spot?Surely everything is inside us

already. We move forwardinto light, into color,

into sound. The world is.We feel thinking.

We are here.

RUMINATION #8,758

Whether weathered leatherqualifies as just a tongue-twister

or as a sign that the (disappearing) past(cowboys, the wild west) … Whether, I say,

it, like so much else,has just about finished

its famous last act … Well, that’s still, let’s say,an open question. Remember death?

Yep, that’s what the former swaggerersand fast-draw artists

all, at the last, signed up for.Who would have thought it? And what are we, now,

to make of it? “What about today?” you,or perhaps your neighbor, might ask.

And, of course, that one,it goes without saying,

is always a toughie. Horsepower, distance,speed—they’re still fundamentals,

just changed in their structures,or, in some cases, orbits.

“Here, today, and gone to Maui,”as they used to say in Hawaii.

And, aside from pronunciation,that’s pretty much the story still.