The great doors remain closed, but the spring fragrance
is inside anyway

“Alas,” he thinks, “a perfect day for a walk.”
But first he steps outside to take a look.

At the party: they surround him and his chair.

“So it was in the morning, then,
that you first put this hat on your knees?”

no thank you I don’t want to spend my life
giving extreme unction to a crowd of toads

Come on, let's conjure up
something really horrible:
What would you most hate

The light that is shining
over there is a traffic sign.
I returned the money I borrowed.

My bird is the cardinal,
one will sometimes come to me

or vanishing bluebird,

I wish somebody would give me
a couple of live panda bears.
After all these years I deserve them.

They come in many sizes—small and faint, loud and 
thunderous. And it’s a problem, what to do with them,
they won’t rise up to heaven where ears have the power

I hold no greater value
than the secret
Please believe I strive