Each thing speaks of itself and in speaking

names, refers, connects others into the fabric of things.

Each day has its own menu, corn becomes maize,

eggs become Benedict and so on, pushing us along until we stop.

Until we realize that time never was about fair shares.

Time began as waiting and so continues,

as the weather moves yet does not go away.

The measures of time, seconds minutes hours,

are as notes to chords to stanzas,  they are quantities, almost persons

grasped like stones rather than abstractions scattered across a page.

Deconstruct this unfinished aria.

If the key can be changed, the tempo altered, the song redeemed

we might all stand smiling under the whole expanse of sky

speaking, naming, referring, connecting.

For now, it is out into a night which is less than too anything

so you leave the sweater on the veranda but the weave reminds you

of the fabric of space, of Einstein and the needles of time piercing your skin,

and this is what counts for an inner life.

Yet the fabric is there comforting your anguish because it IS there.

And this is what counts for History – what you find around the corner,

in a bar, at the office. The moments you pause are the life you have.

History without dates is infinity, that grand abstraction

refusing to be tamed by our notions of fairness,

acting like a God.