blue square, by Brenda Hillman

When I gave up hope of being complete,

the sorrow deepened.

As that went too, a mystery replaced it.

Now it’s a faint blue square against which being

and nonbeing will always

wrestle, even in the afterlife . . .

Spiders move raindrops over flat

woolly webs as stars wheel through the Andromeda Galaxy.

Light that left those stars when humans

first stood up is just now getting here . . .

Beyond that, the alchemists remake the worlds

from what rises and falls, vapor and distillate--

From “Loose Sugar” by Brenda Hillman (Wesleyan/New England: $11.95, 113 pp.) Reprinted by permission.