When I Knew Everything

When I was twenty and knew everything

I thought I'd never be as soft as snow.

My every step propped up the hard black earth;

My head, an island in the fruitless sea

Of someone's air, bobbed hard against the damp.

But then a morning came: in sky-filled trees

I saw the ease of rooting while afloat;

From the space-riddled lattice of a fence

I learned the ease of gaping, though a wall;

How old I was, or wasn't, I forgot:

I rolled in as a cloud I did not see

(My eyes went blind with dampness); in the dark

I felt the ease of coming softly down.