How much more will I sow and never eat?
goes the idiot’s question. Which merits
an idiot’s answer: how much time is there
in the universe? You will miss most things,
but it’s not your fault. Out there, the limit
is light, and what you can see by it. Down here,
pressure makes most of the ocean an X.
But absence is different from loss. Most springs
have not been taken, just missed. By reflex
I grieve those mild mists, those sunny snowfalls.
By reflex, the grey-blue Broad-Billed Parrots.
But we don’t dream about them. We don’t wake,
wishing we had a record of their calls.
We don’t call for them. We don’t call this an ache.