Sixty point zero zero, on and on, reads this, while every other face
reads fifty-nine point ninety-ninety-nine…
Such small differences… Whence? Beyond the limit of what I can trace.
And yet, it's plain to see the gaps
when decades pass and times elapse,
and diligent machinery is drifting to decline.
While they and I tick on, the towers fall,
or verdigris blooms on them, seen by all.
I go from noble house to noble house,
and walk beneath a dusty sun and moon of lime.
There is still a need for someone
who is capable of calibrating some device,
even though, as the most aristocratic know,
as our calibration grows more fine,
we approach the limits of our artifice.
I am content to pass the time.
If I composed a letter tonight,
What would I write?
To whom would I write?
Who is someone, at some distant site—some far forever away—
a suitable heir, who by the tail would catch someday
what, entailed in the entailment I have to commit
to the fickle support of a frail branch
on a tree without roots, like a wing all aflit,
is written while only quiet dogs are awake,
under only a quiet mottled glowing light?
Could there be someone whom I can hope, for some sake,
to be conscious and walking later this morning,
who, I can pray, could make my words something more than mistake?
I can pray that there might.