A burst of colour
Breathes life
Into a space
Of regimental order

A burst of colour
Breathes life
Into a space
Of regimental order
I have convinced myself
That chaos follows me
As if a companion
Or a stalker I can not shake
Until today’s revelation
That it is merely disorder
Of my own orderly creation
Like the roiling waters
Left in the wake
Of a vessel underway
And I am always underway
Though always looking back
Focused on the havoc
Left behind
In the lives of self and others
Manufacturing in my mind
The spiritual narrative
Of a Job-like tragedy
That relieves me of responsibility
These many lines
Of thought
Of action
Of possibility
Some converging
Some parallel
Some intersecting
A disorder
Of subtler
Orders
Patterns
Within patterns
Within a cross-section
Of a whole
Imperceptible
Step back
And back again
To reveal the whole
With its harmony of line
Every detail attended to
Clean lines and sturdy grace
All reflected in polished stone
But later
I notice
A chair is missing
Crumbs scattered on a table
In a lifetime dedicated
To observing the nuances
Of all details great and small
I wonder
What is the larger world
All that I’ve seen?
Or all that I’ve seen
But never saw…
Suddenly
The world I know
Seems very small
Like discovering the harmony
In discord
Like finding the order
Underlying chaos
So that all the world
Alien and familiar
Becomes more beautiful
The words come
The way lichen
Came to the rock
They come to me
Both words and lichen
So their beauty can be known