and what’s the work?
To ease the pain of living.
Everything else, drunken
dumbshow.
– Allen Ginsberg
I have no appetite for news, yet addicted
to reason less obvious
than the Emperor’s latest haberdashery.
Coffee conversation stops
to the quiet glide of a Cooper’s Hawk
beneath the roof overhead, limp legs
dangling, quail warm before breakfast.
She has chosen the four of us
to interrupt, to remind of naked grace
in a profane world—to ease the taloned
hold of the drunken dumbshow
before we hay the cows
and we feel blessed
for prolonged moments of wonder unwound
to remember who we are.
