The Rites

(Hogpen, deciduous growth, etc.
making neither much dent
nor any feeling: the trees completely
or incompletely
attached to ground

During which time all the time sounds of an anterior conversation
and what are they talking
about

Cares mount. My own
certainly
as much as anyone else's.

Between
each and every row of seats
put a table
and put on that
an ashtray.

(Who don't know what I know
in what proportion, is either off, too much
or on.

Look it up, check
or if that's too much, say, too time-consuming or whatever other
neat adjective to attach to any
distraction
(for doing nothing at all.

The rites are care. The natures
less simple. The mark of hell knows what but
something, the trace of

line, trace of
line made by someone

Ultimate: no man shall go unattended.
No man shall be an idiot for purely exterior reasons.


--Robert Creeley