The shadow on the wall vanished. The sun vanished,
a receding siren. The violet light that dressed the snow
vanished, and the steam, rising from the kettle
in a fabulous plume. A child vanished into muscle and speech.
I myself passed through the last locked gate
at the end of the tenth corridor
and stood very still while the prison-patch of memory
was sown on my sleeve. My cap pulled low.
And then the question:
What did you bring? Was there not a moment, marched along
as I was, when I put out my finger and wiped some dust
from the wall, saved a dead fly, stole pollen from an Alpine
flower? I didn’t know what to say.
Was there not a moment, in some forgotten corner, where beauty
still lingered, when you kept a piece of skin from the plum
you were peeling? No, I said.
No there was no moment 
or no you did not? It was confusing, to say the least.
I could not see that the course of history had changed.
Even if you knew that, you might not know
there are moments seized with tenderness.
This was one of them.