Stillness and Motion

            “But forms of thought move in another plane”
                                                                          Donald Davie

1. On a Grin

One couldn’t miss this reaper’s grin, and thus
I feared it could be the last thing I’d see
Before a night of deadpan randomness
Would make all faces freeze eternally.

Surefooted life’s consistent with its ends
In that, despite their rictal miens, they are
Not even next-to-last in either sense
The one last thing in life being life so far.

Each grin can grow into a last thing though
Depending simply on when it occurs;
The odds are of that kind one cannot know
As long as life in life itself demurs.


2. On Unease

Starting as tight and narrow as it ends
And, in between, a vast of wistfulness
Life, so consistent with its trifles, tends
To come down to itchy feet or homesickness.

It’s hard to value peace in peacetime, it’s
A bore that anyplace your self got ways:
This vehicle of tiniest cogs and bits
Goes creaking if not greased up with malaise.

I gather that when traveling went tricky
Reasoning off was all your actual move
Backward or forward, an unease that sticky
To have you slipping into cushy groove.


September 11, 2016