Rain Plays in the Trees on the Way

Count No ‘Count was right, in a way—
The past’s not dead; the past’s not past.
It’s not what was. It’s what you have.

What’s true for his state with its Trace
Is true for you here and now, too.
What’s here’s what’s left of what went on.

It’s not what was. It’s not what went.
It’s what’s left. That Trace is cut deep
And grown in where wheels and feet went.

It’s not wheels and feet. The black smudge
Of the crushed, flat bones of the beast
Is no beast but what the past leaves

As it feeds—your past, that you see.
Rain plays the pipes in trees grown dark
In the Trace. Floods carve the smudged beast.