Undone

What was one is done and undone,
a length of grosgrain unbowed
but still of a piece, a slick of silk
that holds back hair or wraps
around two wrists is hardly felt,
barely there until untied it falls.

Everything fails. Everything falls.
Leaves end their reign, expose
the craw of branches, clouds let
down their bounty. Rain undoes
dust, drools the earth to puddles.
Snow carpets the same space,

mimics death, and clocks tick
like metronomes, time edges
past this all but memories
pressed in the pages of other
seasons, brittle roses faded
if unforgotten. New blooms crowd

the passing of was. Omniscience
ruling cycles of change, of glances
that remain until heads turn, until
the yearning of some wish awakes
to day, and still more voices speak
of go or stay, but these no more

than words, strangled in cups
of morning coffee, swallowed sweetly
bitter, then empty. Done, undone,
carried, dropped, picked up again,
pieced together, runes and stanzas,
oracles and dreams, the quilt

of hopes and seems or schemes worn
ragged, warm and cold, grief buried
in the folds, lids shut, one toe
of truth exposed then shrinking
back into belief, the safety of retreat
from what is lost or won and done

or un, beginning of an ending,
slouching toward something else
unknown, embraced without guile,
even here, in the wreckage
of a poem, in the rise or fall
of heart or home. Anew. Begun.