Variation (Overheard)

CHARLES NORTH

VARIATION (OVERHEARD)

If dreams are our agents, light touches or

The warnings of some god who to inform

Us of his wishes creates those patterns

On which our sense of contingency depends

(As our sense of loss depends on its

Surfaces) our nights are receptions

Like trees to filter out the night's light

And do what we let them, so long as we

Are prepared to undo what was necessary

Once everything, those fiery double-deckers

As if from planetary embassies taken

And replaced, the life of a fly, landing

On the window in the exact shadow

The dust displaced by its death settles in

As easily imagined as a puff of smoke

From the American yacht in the Americas Cup

Or Haymaker of those still to be inspired

Drifts running off the page, self-synecdochical

And running away. The message of a day

Seeded with smoke pills and dropped

To assure of its intent, "I can't imagine

Not having found you that would have been like

Avoiding you," or its obscure biographer

Sound reaching the nose and mouth, being sweet.