Legacy

By the time I finish, you'll be on the moon.
It takes so long and I begin again
day, night, again, always the new thought.
Once or twice I found an end before a blur
of non-sequitur. Then I knew closure.
Mostly the strands diverge then clot outside
the known circumference of familiar things.

By the time I finish, Jupiter will be
home to your monuments The songs will rise
of your doings and beings, your makings, your feats.
I will be tracing a convoluted thread
a foot or two outside my door,
the yard tangled, the car on blocks.
Stagnation has its own aesthetic.

Renown is not its consequence.

By the time I finish you will not know my name.
I have known only the untuned note,
cracked torso of elegant thought—
what hints of riches, deep within the dig
what whole parts, what stories unresolved,
what bursts of pods and galaxies, what arrows
shot into vapor—their targets misaligned and understood.

As you begin, I will be mingled in
the soil of possibility, mired with damp
and the urgent expulsion of humus that rounds the worm,
still in pursuit of its mouth.
Salvation waits in that tunnel. It cannot be far.
When I find the end of my arm and sip the cup
you will be there, again, again, again.