Writing it down
like writing it down would
take on some of the encumbrance,
like a catalogue,
an inventory ever
dealt a crop. The pen—skate
and pull—
and drawing it out
like a record was
retroactive. The harvest moon
still came on time
and that’s when the fruited
boughs fell heavy, even
after it was named. Before
we called it that, a plant still
bloomed upon itself but
weeds grew easy
and we took note.
The drum line looms.
Winter—tranquil on
the plot—fell timely and
we counted damage like the
toll was final.
The trumpet warns, he ripples rings
over the flatlands
laterally and history’s
bespectacled scribes took it down
like it’d transpire in
favor of the crop on
second reading.
The march arrives.
Rank and order—disassembled—
trod the same ground.
The procession—clamber
and ruin—like the winter—
left a bedding of
grown-plants spent.
Writing it down,
like on paper it
could shoulder the loss,
even while the records
were no relief to the toil,
as if the accounts were
not turned out, like a product
that could be planted
and destroyed.

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