They have given me
a songbox

so I live on the river
where inverted illustrations 

of the world’s 
anatomy may pass

A heron travels
just above the surface 

mindful of changes 
in the isotherms 

and marginalia 
almost written on a bridge 

so insubstantial it appears 
to lead nowhere 

into nothing 
They have given me 

a story of a solitary 
ecosphere where an outcast 

species makes everything 
anew and still is lost  

And yet there is the presence  
of silence in the story 

they have given me 
a place to sit and witness