Settled by my open door
Shaded by an upper floor
Strollers do not look at me
As if I were or am.
My gaze is fixed on what I see,
A hornet crawling up a tree,
Hung upon a sharpened claw,
Its wings vibrating as a fan.
So this is how we sort things out:
They there, I here, and he,
Oblivious of us both, absorbs
The questing ray of transferred doubt.
Brisk nothing passes in this way
Handing on reflections from day to
Night: Minding a machine:
Docketing a social hoard.
Distracted by another’s minute trust
It’s years before we know there’s been
A steady fall of age like dust.