In those days

For a time we were lucky; we still 
had books and notebooks where 
we could write a record of the days 
all day, if that is what we wanted. 
There was a yard, so we could measure
wire and garden stakes, buy soil in bags 
that we then added to the soil that lay 
in its natural state around our homes. 
For this was the irony of the world 
as we'd come to know it for a very
long time: how it was poured out
and packaged in parts for purchase,
and then even the things we thought
we owned were being sold to us.
How appropriate that purchase came
from the Old French porchacier 
which means search for, run after,
pursue. We'd run out of coin
but not out of tears. And there 
would be no end therefore
to our searching. Our hearts 
gave way repeatedly, as one
violent day slid into another 
as if without separation. 
And yet we wound and set 
our clocks. In the dark 
we listened hard for the bird 
whose voice we'd heard 
at that hour in the morning.  

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