Lacunae

I praise the button hole’s accomplishment,

praise trash cans so rusted and broken,
they puzzle the garbage man,

praise the water-well dowser’s uncanny walk
as he extends an iron rod or a beach branch:
which ever will most surely remember
the dry land’s hallowed grief.

I praise the woman who thought to embroider
upon an altar cloth both cutwork angels
and Containing within itself all sweetness.

I praise the Calusa Indians of Charlotte Harbor
of whom it has been said: If their hands and noses
were cut off, they took no account of it.

Who can say if the pleasure of acceptance
is better than the power of denial?

O, reader, in the midst of this, our conversation
here in our paper garden, I praise our silences.