Absence is an infinite flower.

Spirits have more body

than these dancing fools.

The talk of the living runs thin

while the dead talk pools.

Out back behind the curtains,

in the factory of shadows

where some accumulated substance

oozes like the milk of life

and the vastness of dark matter

over some seeming thing,

I lean in my suspended trousers

to hear bells without clappers

in a wind that rings.

In a wind that moves and moves

on some eternal circuit,

taking no history with it,

taking no order of numbers

or embankment of watching eyes,

taking no revealed skies.

Taking no ribbons of vapor

taking no light that dies

in its fretless tide.