Sometimes One Act

​Sometimes, one act can destroy
What a thousand thoughts and feelings
Cannot repair. The air is filled 
Weeping, fires smudge the ceilings,

Weasels lick their wounds, children
Are born, photographs burn, dreams
Illustrate unexplained 
Messages, trout die in streams,

Or a single thought may repair
A thousand destructions, a light
Goes on, you see the creatures lumber
And clumsily fight, their hide is white

And red, a path can be redeemed,
A blighted grapevine, yellow and spotted,
Your fingers twitch, you pull, you want
To see all of the tangles unknotted,

Sometimes one thought is more
Of a blessing than a thousand acts,
The air is soaked with vapor, the geyser
Bubbles, you long for cataracts,

The facts are as they are, the light
Has changed, a glowing from the west,
Candles flicker, silent spaces of stars,
Fear and longing clear and unexpressed.