Revelations reoccurring, he who is babbling away
in James Madison Plaza, in what goes around,
what comes around, light made holy by the fury
of the tears with which it mingles, simple enough,
when looked at directly, the child, shy and fearful,
who won’t speak. And for the record, the mind,
like the night, has a thousand eyes—
sparrows in the bushes; a small cat
rolls in the snow; sleet pounding the windows.
In the space of a memory, the facade of a church,
an angel on each side of a fiery wheel.
from So Where Are We? by Lawrence Joseph (2017). Reprinted in A Certain Clarity: Selected Poems by Lawrence Joseph (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020). Highly recommended!