Nor Better, Nor Worse

Every thought in the marriage
Of news and mind readmits
Impediments, memories,
Confusion of what occurs
(Which is only in the mind)
With what occurred long ago,
(Which is only in the mind).

The planted sapling outside
The motel window last year
That was lit by the sunrise,
Green-gold beside a highway
And a muddy vacant lot,
Suggesting its own wisdom
Not at all to do with it,

Lights up again in the mind
Remembering through the dark
On a cot beside a crib
Containing a shadowy,
Inconsolably wailing
Baby who must be outside
Of the mind, occurring now,

Really needing attention,
Not a dream but destruction
Of the dream of that sapling
Glowing in the memory
Illuminating the thought
That any choice of branches
Leads to more branches, then twigs,

And every possible path
Is more or less the same length,
The same beauty, the same end,
None of them better, none worse,
Choices burnished by sunlight,
Bright burning bush in night's mind,
As I sing us back to sleep.