Epistemology

You don’t have to read anything.
You don’t have to check, anymore.
You’re a hermit by the wayside.
What on earth is there left to know?

The trees record prevailing winds
By how, when still, they tilt their limbs.
You’d never know an accident
Happened right here, not long ago—

A car overturned on the grass—
To evade a truck as it passed?
Five blond children stood where you sit,
Watching as the police conversed

With a man—their driver-father?
Two girls in white dresses and braids,
Three boys in dark slacks and white shirts,
Likely family, dressed for church.

The air was bright, and cars backed up
Behind the wreck a mile in sun.
You will never know what happened.
Now you sit here by the roadside,

Where there’s not much traffic today,
And there are no scraps in the grass,
And the prevailing winds are back.
What’s left to know? You can’t read this.