HOMAGE TO WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS My half-love for things, such as cars and buildings— I seem to have grown into it. I consider myself not unhappy. I see, between buildings, through my windshield, mountains: the idea of nature as unnecessary basis. I walk away from my parked car as if from an unpainted backdrop at the back of a real stage. I half-sense, behind me, a dog weaving its leash-bearer through long pauses, and scents. I stray off the sidewalk, and walk on the long rectangle of bare grass: the idea of roots rising up, and becoming excessive flowers. THREE QUESTIONS After the lost fawn, struck dumb by my presence as I walked on the dirt road that runs past my house, bounded back into the woods, was it no longer lost? No matter how diminished by the wide world, my life always matters, which means what? The dim light inside the woods on either side of the road is the thin bone from which all skin is born, but where was I after the lost fawn bounded back into the world? I just kept on walking. Behind me, in the light like the light inside a church: one broken answer, or two. Ahead of me, in the light: multiplication, fruitfulness falling like pine needles onto a soft floor, and being.