You Hold Up a Sec

Every poem’s a short-term roborant
For the writer, maybe a reader

Or two. Then it’s time to get moving,
Be a human, no mere knot of words.

Drop sticks and leaves in quick or sluggish
Streams on their way to where they vanish,

Some of them will fetch up against rocks,
Back up a while, make new waves, then shift.

Whatever relief there was for them,
A pause to gather as leaves again

With some twigs, water-logged remainders
Of fallen branches, equivalent

Shapes and colors broken in the stream,
The illusory restoration

Had grace, however temporary
As everything, worlds, poems, scenery.