Towering

Are you interested in stealing
instincts? Or in explaining
secrets of a world
that rules with age and equidistance?

Layer by layer, wind
seeks a message,
a voice for Fate. The sun,
its seas,
even birds in passing,
dictate science at the bidding of will.
An existence
unaffected by seasons.

So much about an unfathomable life.
A round universe with plans for tomorrow,
never its final word.

I can't speak for accidents elsewhere,
only forms, lines—
thoughts stretching to dialogue
on charts or water.
Believe me,
answers are small

even if one day you travel
in light years,
even when light becomes endless
as a star dies, another
emerges, in astonishment
and for no reason.




From The Ruined Elegance: Poems by Fiona Sze-Lorrain as part of the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets. © 2016 by Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission.