It cannot be more weird, she thought, when she found
the handwritten note inside the egg shell,
saying: Consider, which came first, the egg or the chicken…

At the second-hand stall she wants to buy something
that makes her feel better. A woman tries on a fur coat,
all eyes upon her as she mirrors herself, not disliking.
Not for me, she thinks, the other murmuring to herself,
after all, they’re dead already …

She remembers, still young, three days without concern,
strolling through the city with her lover, aimless, his eyes in hers,
in love like with first snow, every crystal pristine, redeeming.

Sometimes she longs to be the message in a bottle
on a foreign shore: finally found, carefully unfolded,
held between hands, eventually read and understood.

This is a warm winter in Italy,
and people lament: the seasons are not
what they used to be, it doesn’t rain enough
and when rain comes, it is calamity.

So why not refine the rules, clear
the ground from the ashes of disguise.
The blind nodding does not serve us well.

If nothing else, let us worship the breath
that keeps us alive, in waves of sudden
silence moving through and on,
while clouds gather over the grasslands,
in contemplation

Straight up in the sky
a crow moves her wings for
reasons of survival.
She knows all about the practice
of flying, the importance to set
her feet on the ground from time
to time, stepping strongly
onto the corpse of some small
animal staring into the void
of eternity, tearing pieces
of rotten flesh,
not more anyone’s delight.
Her presence as truthfully imprinted
into the thin winter air as if it were
a sentence, black on a white page,
the writer unknown.

On the frozen highway, blanketed
by the rush of fleeting cars,
the headlights uncover pieces
of uncertain space unfolding.
The impassible twilight that dominates
the moment creeps into the ditches
between thrown-out litter, sad definition
of our presence on earth. From the North,
a blizzard approaches, covering highway,
town, ditches, litter with its loving
white crystals, new morning awash
with disinterested light.

Heaven bends toward earth
in a promise, almost familiar, of
arches met, stone on
previous stone graciously
overlapping in perfect faith.

From the bottom of time
roots sprout and bloom,
memorizing immortality in each
petal unfolding.

Eons from now, the slow unfolding
still taking place, still a mysterious part
of a music never written, an alphabet
of sounds, gorgeous and invasively
entering what might be coming.