Once I had a sapphire set
into a ring, a gold chain,
a locket of clamped tendrils
with a clasp. And you had a map
showing which parts of the hills
your family once owned. Once
I had a spoon yoked to a fork,
one case to house two appetites.
This is the way all things
enchanted us until time
put them on a raft and pushed
them into the bubbling current.
One cannot grow wise without living
inside of history. One tries to feed
the fire which is always about to go
out. Out in the fields, the dry,
crackling heads of sunflowers billow
like waves. We watch from the porch,
whittling what's left of morning
into a sun we might raise like a flag.
We hide from clouds shaped like bulls
or swans, trees in which souls are trapped.