A Crown of Dust

(a cento)

5

It has been this way so long

the dead earth candling its sorrows
the way a mother cradles the child

My mind has a slow metabolism, it is slow

What would it be to live a life in which even one petal was unfurled?

The monumentality of this

We come into the world and there it is.

I look at a tree: I see, I sense, I know

      And, when the winged gods finally interfere

how spring undoes the year like a knot

I am tired of feeling guilty; I am tired of running up a tab.
for beauty, I cried, and leaned my elbows on the balcony

I could praise the present tense and begin again.

we're almost there, a man says to a child



Line sources:
Marissa Davis, Gillian Cummings, Joseph
Campana, Rick Barot, Bhanu Kapil, Julia
Guez, Juliana Spahr, Tomaz Salamun, Carey
Van Landingham, Brian Teare, Diana 
Khoi Nguyen, Pere Gimferrer, Steven
Leyva, Jorie Graham