Here is yet one
more life that we see only from outside
from the outside

here it is again
not in itself but later
in signs of its going
where it appears to have come as a reminder
here there recurring in
the spring daylight

presented so close to us occasionally
that we might not have been here
unnoticed as we were

see where we have walked again and again
the earth has risen
out of its profound obscurity
where it has been recognized unseen
known faced handled once
by the blind velvet the fingers the wise nails
before the visage

which we have known
only later
in death and in pictures
opened from dark pages long afterward

as the earth here
has been opened and raised
into outer light and invisible time
and once more
eye has not seen it come
ear has not heard
the famous fur the moment apart from us
finding its way in the dark without us

Illustrations by Blair Thornley