Good Pablo said the stones fell from the sky,
and science backs him up—all our beginnings
blasting out, clustering here or there
among the dark. . . .                                   Whatever spun,
fell inward, and finally became us, amounts to
four or five like myself walking around
in the mornings with our ticket stubs
of intuition.                    October, a vacancy in the trees,
a couple rags of cloud caught up there, dingy
blossoms floating branch to branch . . .                                                                 and nothing—
not the perfection of the waves or the borderless
dominion of birds, not the Southern Cross,
that shimmering signet of hope—saves even one
of us in our sleep. . . .                                      A night wind gallops
over the swells toward the islands at the end
of the sea. . . . Hands in my pockets,
all I turn up are keepsakes of dust,
the dulled archipelago of air stretching
beyond the tides.                              I go on, shuffling
down the path, whistling what was
once thought a lively tune, grateful
to be a satchel of ligaments and bone
still able to transfer enough chemicals,
one synapse to another, to understand
something is missing when I look up
and praise a streak of grey engraving
the hosannas of light, the spindrift
off the rocks, anything sent into the air,
post-dated to a god who,
in his infinite memory must know
he’s abandoned us here . . . so many
self-conscious bits of sand
in a starry whirlwind of desire.