Shapes

In the longer view it doesn’t matter.

However, it’s that having lived, it matters.

So that every death breaks you apart.

You find yourself weeping at the door

of your own kitchen, overwhelmed

by loss. And you find yourself weeping

as you pass the homeless person

head in hands resigned on a cement

step, the wire basket on wheels right there.

Like stopped film, or a line of Vallejo,

or a sketch of the mechanics of a wing

by Leonardo. All pauses in space,

a violent compression of meaning

in an instant within the meaningless.

Even staring into the dim shapes

at the farthest edge; accepting that blur.

Copyright Credit: Ruth Stone, “Shapes” from In the Next Galaxy. Copyright © 2002 by Ruth Stone. Reprinted with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P. O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.coppercanyonpress.org.

Source: In the Next Galaxy (2002)