I turn on lights surprised
by what I see.
That chair that lifted me.
How different the color is today.
Not the same chair,
not the same me.
How new the garden is!
Not one flower the same.
The unrepeated red
of each cardinal flower.
Where does the pigment come from?
How do first poems get written?
What catches fire?
What explains the return
of lost coins?
The praying mantis killed by the storm.
A little death that left its grief.
Then weeks later,
among the leaves,
stronger than ever.
Another shape for the same alien,
or always the same indestructible being?
Daring me to believe
that death is a joke
played on stage.
Perhaps hour by hour
life lives between the tics and the tocks,
like stirring marbles,
falling in love,
as if it never happened
between the touch of new hands
or old,
the encounter of enchantment
through the eyes.
To live in the first times of eternity,
and see the remarkable garden
that grows
once every remarkable day.