When everything appears to be flowing, You tear pages from the book and watch As they flutter to fall in the water. When everything falls apart around you You tear at your hair and think As life remains as it was when, Everything is flowing. ...

You knew a guest was in the house The seat would be up. Sometimes the door would be closed. Intimacy breeds familiarity, And a sense that what was hidden Behind the door was less a right Of all, than an expectation. We are unashamed, possibly even Impolite. But we always know When there's a guest in the house. ...

And to just lift off, leave Everything behind, a fancy Flight of. But It's not really possible. And leave just to lift off, Find yourself gone, a fancy Dinner party of. Or All your best friends. They would miss you. Most likely. They would wonder where You had lifted off to. A flight of fancy from a fancy dinner party. All expectation gone. ...

Fireworks at the colisseum. No. In the colisseum. Chinese tourists, roman candles, in the colisseum. From outside, over the wall. Can we remember everything in the past? Or are we doomed to repeat some things. Can we be doomed when repeation is how we learn? Roman candles, Chinese tourists, fireworks in the parking lot at the colisseum. This is not what I had expected. ...

Rain doesn’t help us Remember the cause, the Animating factor. Rain only redistributes Colossal amounts of Caustic chemicals everywhere. ...

The taoists had it right. There is no strength without weakness, no wet without dry. Puffing up his chest, he stares through you, as though through staring he can destroy. But soon, enfilade and then off-guard the underbelly reveals insecurity that air cannot protect. All is soft in the middle. ...

Spend much time there myself. Depth charges primed, deployed, sinking, waiting, fury unleashed. Proximity and destruction raining shrapnel slowly sinking. No fire down here, just a shudder and ripping, tearing. Nothing to see. All contained by pressure. Crushing pressure, surrounding us all. Can’t decide which direction so it goes everywhere. ...

Under what circumstance did we expect this would work? Days, numbered, slide past and not everything is repaired promptly. Some things are not fixable at all. Amazing, what we’ll carry with us, into the subway, the neighbor’s house, our last swim in the ocean. Scars from life. Some physical, some metaphysical, all a product of choice and circumstance. ...

Understanding how everything goes together is, roughly, all that life requires of you. ...

Diaspora in a compromised land, stretched by forces moving so slowly, slower than we can see but with evidence left everywhere. Culture accretes faster, but still imperceptible, reminding us that no one knows everything, or anything when it comes to that. When it comes to remembering how to live, how we survived the cataclysm, we depend on those who were lost once. We depend on those who knew enough to get us here. We depend on those around us now, able to carry our hopes and our dreams of returning to a place we’ve only been told about. ...