For the First Fog of October
By Adam Clay
If an idea exists but is never found,
then the stained-glass windows
will reflect nothing back to the ear.
Most days filter through the mind,
waiting not for movement
but for a road to be built,
brick by brick, word by word,
weariness replaced with joy,
but what is joy without the years
and the way they open constantly,
two or three hearts pumping a volume of blood
meant for just one?
Our disbelief in the ordinary
emerges from the way we color routine:
leaves pile up depending on the wind,
but why pause to notice?
Eventually the seasons embrace
what our words will not, the illuminated day
just one of a thousand others,
and the names we give back to the world
mean ultimately little against the way
the sun pleads sense
from the smallest cradle of dew.
Copyright Credit: Adam Clay, "For the First Fog of October" from Stranger. Copyright © 2016 by Adam Clay. Reprinted by permission of Milkweed Editions.