Come Back to the Light in the Room

We miss you, hope of a soul,
Trust that you would find a gift

To share, a kind word. What if
Words can’t tell you what we need?

When you watch the wall in sun
And write from there, you feel loved.

When you try to reach your kind
And write to your thoughts of them,

That crowd of eyes in your head,
Your lines look like joss-stick dust.

The voice of a word is weak,
And the shapes that cast a spell

Are not in the shapes you draw.
Be with us. Wrap us in thought

And bend your head while the light
Which is and is not a word

Spins from the last leaves to fall
Past the glass and warms the wall.

Good As It Goes

There’s a sense in a soft hour,
A bland glide through a bright day

That none of what you might think
You want, none of what you love,

None of your gods or your kind,
None of how you’ll change the world,

None of your goals, not so much
As one least wish to be known,

To last, to win in the end,
To make a mark, leave a name,

Means a thing. The thing that lasts
Is the way that things don’t last,

Not cause, art, faith, fame—they are,
This is, you are, and we’re gone,

Which is just the way we are,
Which is just the way it goes—

The soft hour, the calm, the warmth
Of what’s good and knows it goes.