“What made this happen?”
you ask every time
as if
compulsion itself
were mandatory,
the way light travels
at the speed of light
“because it must”
*
It is in no sense
essential
that this crown of leaves,
sifted by wind
as if turning over
some problem,
is a gray-green
brightening into rust-red
at the tips
or that its equivocations
fill this instant
to the brim.
*
While light
has caught up
to itself
again
and only seems
to be making
time