Paradise, an
endless movie. You
walk in, sit down in the dark, it
draws you into itself.

Slowly
an old man crosses
the field of vision, his passions
gathering to the brim of his soul.
And grasses
bow and straighten,

the pulse of wind irregular,
gleam of twilight.

Anything, the attention
never wavers. A woman, say,
who is sleeping or laughing or making
coffee.
A marriage.

Stir of time, the sequence
returning upon itself, branching
a new way. To suffer, pains, hope.
The attention
lives in it as a poem lives or a song
going under the skin of memory.

Or, to believe it’s there
within you
though the key’s missing
makes it enough? As if
golden pollen were falling

onto your hair from dark trees.