Dearest Benjamin
Shivering opacity sits out the three-day tomb,
so for you, a casual, conversant aplomb:
What crossed the road and why did it travel?
What is our precedent, if there is only rabble?
How can the path be etched in clay,
when old stones lead us in new ways?
So for you, acausal, a sinking annulled,
the trace that lingers, a dissolving mold
as roots escape, leaves branches replaced.
These boughs of holly would make mistakes
through folly could only: a mistake-misplaced,
as callings can only be as tall as their stakes.
You dig? It’s clear. It’s plain as play:
the works weld within. Commerce is a game
best left to your birds, bees, boldly at hand
when effective love breeds circumstance.
Like loitering lots, like lingering lists
of the things long gone, things never missed:
as you are the first, you’ve got to know
which things went before, that you’ve yet to go.