Coordinating Conjunction

And... and so it goes:

As the thread outlasts the spool,

So the thorn, the rose.

Time observes its rule:

Each instant leaps back into

The dark lilied pool

It sprang from. Each blue

Tile along the garden wall

Ends where it has to

End, in a thin scrawl

Of grout that marks out its grave.

Summer comes to fall.

Though breathing and brave,

The sentence stops, that must burn

The air in its cave.

Thus our great concern-

Feeling shut in by the wall

Of our own pattern-

Seems quite natural:

Even with some makeshift plan,

How to keep it all

Going, how to fan

The embers of aftermath

Up now into an

Even flame-not wrath

Nor sudden lust yielded to-

But light on a path

That would continue

Until some kind of an end

Crept up into view

From around some bend

Or straight toward us from the dark.

Who but would extend

That path, keep the spark

Still left glowing, nursed along

A last walk through stark

Finality? (Strong

Last words will count more than fond

Scraps of sometime song.)

Reaching out beyond

A last bit, we understand,

Breaks some kind of bond:

Desperate, a hand

Trembling adds yet one more and

And and, and and, and

Structure

45 lines · 15 stanzas