What do these things mean,
he asks: black birds fly
north in a newly cleared
sky; a bear’s blood-splattered
scat forms a pattern in the snow;
and again today he thought of her.
Where desire seeks causation
any falling leaf will do to tease
the meaning he wants to create.
He knows any connection is only
his own, yet; he fingers each link,
as if it were a shattered saint’s
reliquary, with enough mediation
to bring her back again into his life.
(October 5, 2014)
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