Wax

Space gives way to time and so must have come before it;

is there space in rhyme, in meter, in reconciliation ?

like an igloo comes before the dark and fire that sustains;

or violin hums through the rains,

while a man,

close by,

sings about his sums and gains or may never even stop to ask why,

or to say goodbye;

but he never stays for too long;

just until his coffee gets cold - and strong;

he drinks it anyway, from a chalice that he stole from the church and so when the priests

approach he covers it quickly with his jacket, so as not to blasphemize or reproach;

but he's careful not to crack it or let it bend too long in the wind,

from its stem,

or to say that he's sinned;

they might be listening;

and he seems to never get old;

or give way to the echoes that first fathom, then reverberate, then seem to enrapture, as if they

wished to enclose or capture;

satisfy, and then violate;

emaciate, emancipate, proclaim like death's storm what hath been wrought within us;

take torch to such rot;

be not -- conciliatory -- either;

or say you forgot;

or linger too long in dismay, wearied by it all;

that is evolution in a sense: there can be beauty in turbulence, in whistling eddies and then gin to

smooth how you played the game and it tore you apart inside, and there was space there, too,

but of a different variety and not altogether synonymous with piety;

are the minds that govern, rule, influence, institutions as dangerous as the uranium that fills a

vacuum tube ?

or encounter;

enclose or encounter;

and there is a trumpet too and a sax,

and even a woman who mops floors,

and a man with an axe,

over there,

before there can be trees that lay in waiting for someone to hear them fall so that they might

sustain the fire and peace amidst it all.