A Comfort

The best time to plant a poem
Is today. The second-best time

Remains in superposition,
Five thousand years entangled,

Fore and aft, before and since.
The shade of an ancient poem

May be tattered, but the shape
Is a miracle, like nothing

You could grow today. And the light
From the fire-splattered poem

At the end is a comfort
That says you don’t know

How long or for whom the wind
Will rustle through sibilant gestures.