lxxxxii.

what was lost; is lost
unable
to restore it,

she said something
was growing
deep below the asphalt

in the ground, skew to
it would rise
through the sidewalk,

in the gap of sky between
the branches,
coalescing past it what

the sky holds will not
touch it
--and she was afraid,

--she fell across the threshold
where she went, I don't know,

but I see the echo, far-off
in other place, coursing,
through the network--I see

it close up, in half-filmed eyes,
there is a tree on the flat by
the rise above the valley, it spreads

alone above the sage-brush, waving
in the wind, green and thin--it frames
the mountains; leaves flickering

like all trees, it is connected only
by its taproots, and what the water
carries to them, but in a stand,

you think they have company, what
living teaches are further examples, what
words are--

--can be carried where words are, even
where they are unexpected, like
water, like wind--they navigate courses

and small expanses, broadly.

what you remember until you know it
will crack on other memory
remembered until it is unknown

carried forward--and what you hope for
new, will snarl in other
new things that are still unknown,

moving sideways, will unravel as it
grapples with what should not be,
because it claims to be finished and whole.