on loss, unprecedented

1 - singular

i am thinking about what these days will mean in the
future -
i mean these days which i can't help

who could?

it isn't as if we are driving up and down i5
with all of our clothes in the
back of the station wagon and a
dog who once yearned to flush pheasant
from the bramble
now dreaming of rest stop
garbage cans.

maybe that's too specific

maybe i mean
something
less hopeful

maybe i mean the part
where you notice
you are falling from very high
high enough to give you
time to think about
speed
and distance
and momentum and
force
and how an object in motion
tends to stay in motion
even when headed
for the dirt

and also how gravity
doesn't know -
doesn't care -
what it catches
as if the fact
that all
things fall
a-pace
means all
things are
equal

and this too

that somehow it matters - still -
what i do
as i fall


2 - unprecedented

we can start with polar bears -
we can start with freeways -

i am looking inside the old books
and i am going to be very happy to find
in one of them - or not even -
i would be happy
to learn from a magazine devoted
entirely to one
signal idea -

but happy is the point -

how happy i will
be when i find in one of the old books
or magazines
or pop hit chestnut from tin pan alley
or any alley at all -

i am saying
i don't care
where the clue
is buried

i am happy to find it

i am happy to find it

i am happy to find some kind of idea,
or suggestion regarding
what's to be done
when what needs to be saved
is lost -
a first hand account -
i mean
for
crying out loud