Procession of Trust

In rough inverse proportion to the height

or stature of a thing, its trustworthiness

      derives. Insensate snow falls white

with an uncanny regularity.

A stone that's heavy one day won't turn light

the next, or change its vantage suddenly

without some agent adjusting it right

or left, or elsewhere, as the case may be.

The flower, pleasing to the smell and sight,

has wilted. But when did it guarantee

it wouldn’t? Moving up: Your kitten might

spend its kittenhood kneading at your knee,

then not come home one adolescent night,

without a warning, wanting to be free.

With people—well, just think of your own life,

of even the reliability

of a lover, a husband or a wife,

though husbands do cheat more, don’t you agree?

With kings and presidents, history

exposes what their offices belie

with reliable consistency,

though now and then one comes along who’ll try.

And as for the Supreme Judge, why pretend

the same God "made me because He loves me"

then, disappointed, decided to send

a flood so all but Noah and his kin

would be destroyed? and says that at the End

of Days, He will again, that it’s not sin

when He does it?! What's greatness but the lack

of trustworthiness, the ignominy

of a nature to betray or to attack—

and cite the victims' infidelity?

So you've found me repining on a boulder

with brambles in my hair. As I've grown older

I’ve learned to grow deliriously fond

of brambles, boulders, ripples in the pond

which I can freely share with you and know—

as surely as next winter will bring snow—

we’ll be here all, should we return tomorrow.