Under the Capitol Dome

There are those who speak of confusion today

as though yesterday there was order

rather than confusion.

There are those who point to confusion today

as though if given a chance

they could tomorrow transform it into order.

There are those who find benefits in confusion

and make it a labor of delight

to render any confusion more confounded.

There are those who expect today's confusion

to be followed by another tomorrow,

these two confusions being different from each other.

The confusions of being born are followed

by the confusions of how to live

until a final moment when a stilled heart

holds release complete and absolute

from all former and earlier confusions.

When one confusion transforms itself into another

there has been a death and a birth

though the newborn confusion

becomes known only across time and silence.

When a confusion results

from seeing what is not all there

it is an identical twin of the confusion

to follow the hearing of what is not all there.

When a witness says

there was confusion in what he saw

and he can't therefore be sure of what he saw,

he may be a strictly honest witness.

A fine sunrise or an elegant sunset

achieves moving colors and masses of changing light

in a properly organized confusion.

The orderly marches

of the night stars and constellations

when looked at by powerful telescopes

hold flagrant and flaming confusions.