i
it costs so much to understand
just a little of this world,
some part you slipped a paper under
and a glass, a spider on the face of
infinity, for what feels like the price
of life itself. i know i lay awake
for months in agony memorizing
the contents of the cage they prepared
for it, peering gravely into corners
knowing they would ask about
details when the time came
to make my account, provided our
hairy little friend still lived
and the house didn’t burn
and the sky unfallen,
et cetera.
ii
soon i was full of heaviness and
walking in trenches, discerning
narrow ways through kind loam.
i was driven into desert places
by my heaviness and thought my soul lost
on a poor wager; i thought of
callaway and the start i almost made
there, and my grief deepened
until it seemed i could go nowhere
but stay and learn the rocks inside
the dry kloof, but i
was wrong about that.
iii
there is so much to learn in this world
but not much to understand, not much
that’s worth trying to, is what i mean;
in any case, you don’t need to know much
to finish well in this life:
only mostly the love of God
and the faith to take one step
a thousand thousand times.
