Late Thoughts in a Dry Garden

We are games
and stories but

both the games
and the stories

are nothing
of the everything

we are not or
are only connected

to by everything
other than games

and stories and
what benefits us

from all the rules
and play and narrative

seems more
and more to me

dangerous
as if the tree

of knowledge
of rules and cheating

of good people and
sore losers were

really after all
a serpentine bargain