A WAY OF EXISTING

Too many rises and falls

are not recorded in the books

that are burned in usual wars.

Has anyone written that crumbs

thrown from a window fall faster

than snowflakes, that waterfalls are merely

victims of their names? They write of the fall

of empires and epochs but not

of the old man who looks at a toy

dug up by a bulldozer.

Traffic-lights cannot stop time

and our uncertainty is just

a way of existence for secrets.

Fear exists in the distance

when soot splits off

from the sparks flying skyward,

but no one so far has written

a tractate on the candles’ smoke

that melts into night

or on the drops of wax

that harden on our shoes;

everyone speaks of the flame

that illuminates our faces.