i beg of you: listen
one lives, as if by accident

want & not wanting,
to turn. who like the saint

by practice more
than anything else is faithful

to presence. the memory,
for example, survives but waves

goodbye vanished
is vanishing into these black

lines. nobody’s isotope.
nobody’s encore. nobody’s

trapdoor. spawn of unless
believe of almost

as in slantwise,
askew we’re destined you said

it nevertheless struggle
on, merge, make sense

tend to the near at hand
like the expensive

delicate ship, sailing on
or the rose shorn from its stem,

that does not know a tragedy
has occurred. love, the leaves die

but still the tree
is there, breathing.


Emily Carr