And so there are things all about us,
Fine things at that:
Hills, perhaps gently rolling, perhaps ending abruptly
Courtesy of the ministrations of some indifferent glacier
Rolling in and then receding with equal diffidence,
The song of some unseen child singing inaudible lyrics,
All tinkling-bell-a-twitter,
Some grand art nouveau city tower,
Festooned with angels on the balusters, gargoyles in the cornices
And they are wondrous indeed,
All with their own histories to relate,
But imbued with the regrettable tendency
To all speak at once, with no inclination to await their turn
Leaving us flummoxed and forlorn,
Shorn of any way to glean what would be precious
From the ore of babble,
But there are those with a certain ear, a certain eye
(Though such eyes may be accompanied by lenses
Thick as the headlight on some ancient VW microbus,
Perhaps without even such limited acuity)
Who can sort such tangles, weaving them together
In such a manner where this cacophony
Becomes something greater than the sum of its parts,
New yet familiar, things we know as true,
As must be true, their presentation to us
Signaled by nothing more than a mere clearing of the throat,
The rustling of some smple garment,
And at such a moment we must proceed
All openness and open to all things
And thence govern ourselves accordingly.