you thought you had lost the way
an automobile embraces all its

passengers it’s so thoroughgoing
as when one masters something

or someone and perhaps you have
mastered me as you know the hock

of my horse and indeed I did not
attend the rally but rather stood

yards away near the oak stump (cut
last year) and watched everyone

forced to enjoy the failed parade and
every morning I wake up of course

and rise from bed and begin to shave.

*

Even in the grandest monuments lifted
what remains something always

seemingly into the stratosphere
something of the architect remains

married to the soil remains inside
of him he cannot ever build it all

out of himself for he does not even
have familiarity of the materials no

he constructs these blueprints orders
their completion and still something

stays behind irretrievable but some
comfort in that it cannot ever all

be expunged some comfort in the undoable.

*

These are the lay days while we wait
for something beyond ourselves but

which includes ourselves to impart
some vision to our crew about to return

across the waters past the simple-minded
monsters who put all of themselves

into their attacks and subsequently feel
defeated even if their swipes reach our hull

because so earnestly they believe
their violence their splaying out

of themselves somehow releases them
from the depths and when the channeled

silvery waters guide you out they require
your trust albeit brief for some other sun

available to you which acts convincingly
which serves as the vital beginning.