A Man May Change

As simply as a self-effacing bar of soap

escaping by indiscernible degrees in the wash water

is how a man may change

and still hour by hour continue in his job.

There in the mirror he appears to be on fire

but here at the office he is dust.

So long as there remains a little moisture in the stains,

he stands easily on the pavement

and moves fluidly through the corridors. If only one

cloud can be seen, it is enough to know of others,

and life stands on the brink. It rains

or it doesn’t, or it rains and it rains again.

But let it go on raining for forty days and nights

or let the sun bake the ground for as long,

and it isn’t life, just life, anymore, it’s living.

In the meantime, in the regular weather of ordinary days,

it sometimes happens that a man has changed

so slowly that he slips away

before anyone notices

and lives and dies before anyone can find out.

Copyright Credit: Marvin Bell, “A Man May Change” from Nightworks: Poems 1962-2000. Copyright © 2000 by Marvin Bell. Reprinted with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P. O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.coppercanyonpress.org

Source: Nightworks: Poems 1962-2000 (Copper Canyon Press, 2000)