a framed pencil sketch
hangs cattycorner from my crib
an amateur’s rendering of
a hand, a baby’s head, a wrist

someone thought the execution
good enough to frame, good enough
to hang in a baby’s room
parts of a baby for the baby

ivory paper, smudged gray lead
clear glass, a black frame
how old am I when I recognize
my own self? dissected

the parts refuse to cohere, head
without a neck, hand here
wrist there, no arm, no body
think about who must have hung it

how many years pass before
I smash this mirror, splinter
the frame, tear up the sketch
bury my remains in the attic

a sawdust-clotted web
an earwig’s fractured corpse
one sawzall a halftone below the other
explains what cannot be explained
the idea that humans are gods

witness this wheelchair pope
colonizer, predator
peel back his whited robe
shrive him, skin alive him
let gall pollute the cracked soil
boiled from the blood of commoners

they creep up behind you
nodding stickseed, six-legged prey
species begin to be missed
spinners spin again

until some time afterward
you don’t see the last of something
on we cower to nowhere

the worm in the apple is the knowledge
that once, for a time, you worshipped me

how that set me apart, made me less real
more a mirage in the mind of a sad man

who’d had a great deal to drink, the mirror
of me worshipping you, an imaginary man

sitting across from me, distanced from me
by the white tablecloth, the green bottle

wine we’d both drunk to the lees — lees 
that now unsettle me, a fibrous sediment

damp, dark red, smelling of fruit, of trees

I long to console my grandmother after
the death of her child, three-month-old
Lena, how swifly she goes from suckling
to choking, gasping, her fingers & face
blue
         Grandma’s futile breasts ache
she doesn’t speak, the five children
sit where they’ve been told to sit
while Aunt Emily wraps the body
Grandpa says, “There, there,” to anyone
listening
                 no sooner the child buried
he comes to Grandma in the night
“No, no” she whispers, but nothing
she can say or do stops him, his
rights prevail, eight more times she
births his child
                            never again cares 
the rift too wide, her world undone
mothering over, she pales away
older children raise the littler ones

one night you agree to go home with a guy
missing a tooth or two — he’s not someone
you work with, that’s one complication avoided
& who knows what his name is — you’ve drunk
rather more than usual despite knowing alcohol

doesn’t agree with you, facts you acknowledge
when you find yourself in a pickup weaving
down a narrow potholed driveway, facts
you acknowledge the full implications of
when in his water bed your head starts to spin

& you vomit, & vomit — that’s the end of that
you think, indeed, you remember nothing else
until morning when despite a mild recurrence
of nausea & no toothbrush, sigh, you agree
to join him in the shower — it’s not clean —

where you ask yourself why you’re naked
worse yet, sober, with no-name — oh well
a body’s a body, you do what you want to do

one by one, three, then four, the donkeys
shamble into town, linger at street corners
snuff choice blooms from flower beds
brightening the paths in the town square

someone owns the donkeys, or claims to
but he sets them loose to block roads
surprise & dismay tourists, nibble fruits
the produce sellers shout & rush to rescue

none wear straw hats or ribbon-braided
manes or tails, no, the donkeys are unkempt
are childhood, carnival, insolence, mayhem
nights, corralled under stars, they caterwaul

six years old
lights out
bedroom door closed 
I lay in bed
plotting my father’s death

for hating us, for beating us
for keeping our mother
from kissing us goodnight
said we were too old for that
a terrorized household
no wonder I flinch

a stranger, a burglar
would climb through my window
I would convince him
my father had the money
I would show him
where & how to kill him
Go, do it now, I’d say

one day, drunk, he stepped off
the commuter train
before it stopped
was nearly
dragged under the train
shoe shredded, clothes torn
I wrung my hands
so close, so close

some people deserve to die
I’m not a killer
or am I?

rain drips from the eaves
a vine flowers, seed spreads
the chores I perform over & over
get dressed brush teeth wash dishes make bed
salvage give shelter hide hold

a center is of no use
adam, then eve — a gender theory
deep roots, a strangling vine
move along, move along as if it matters

I would be pleased not to feel guilty
I would rather not leave the chair
sat upon, cats upon
a third cat glides toward us
messenger angel

don’t pretend you can throw something away 
& forget about it
anyone who puts a controlling hand on anyone
should stop

daisy . . . day’s eye
the rate of rain dropping from the eaves
a poem a net of words
thunder, silence, green
air a web the rain weaves through

the cat sits
& stares out at
the pouring rain
pungent earth

beads sparkle
on velvet green
daylily orange
black-eyed susans
yellow as sun

mice motor
between tufts
a groundhog
stands to nibble
tops of weeds

harmonizing
to phoebe, vireo
flicker, crow
the cat chitters
moans miaows

heaven, he muses
must be a world
where I’ll be
out there too

when I pluck a millipede from the porch floor
it curls to a tight ball, & I fling it
outside, where no doubt
it lands somewhere & eventually
(how long? how does its timer work?)
it uncurls & crawls away

exactly what will my behavior be
when something ten thousand times larger
plucks me up & flings me out?

since while this removal occurs
neither the millipede nor I speak
can any observer call either of us
a higher life form?

the groundhog, if she hurries away
when I edge closer to her 
out in the meadow —

the phoebe, when she shelters
a second clutch of eggs
high in the rafters —

the leafed-out elms
branches like emerald platters
& a silken swish if wind
pushes them away —

lightning bugs in rain
can morph you from a body in bed
to a vessel reaching port, your sails ablaze

erase electronics from everyone’s hands
then watch us, how we stare down into our cupped
palms, how our thumbs & fingers tap at air

how all of us are emptied
unsynced, as alone in the world
as we were before devices, forced to wait

to find out what happens, to attend to the here
the present, to follow ourself
quiet, alone, far from the madding crowd

I plan to drive 8,000 miles to visit
10 people I might not see otherwise
before I die
                     or they die
                                        aside from cost
freeway driving the fact that I’m 77
I think I can’t but go     
                                    I don’t
attend funerals nor would I host one
dead means dead
                                 the home planet
we’re ruining could end while I’m
on the road
                      my universe could
flip to an otherverse one me driving
other me dying
                            I might spaghettify
into the nearest black hole

A solar flare. A shooting star.
Raging & raving, the fellow
topples across the road
into the home of an old woman
with two yelping dogs. Whether she
asks him in or can’t keep him out
isn’t recorded in the formal
inquiry. Go, she says, but he won’t.

Mosquito, black fly, deer tick.
He grabs her phone when she says
she’ll dial 911. He runs next door
where an old man lets him in
though his wife protests. She knows
what the fellow’s up to, drunk
& disorderly. He wants more
drink & a shoulder to cry on.

Brown bats sweep the roofline.
She calls the police, because what
do you do when someone needs
help, someone who’s a neighbor
surely, but not family, not a friend,
only a local, an aging man, parents
dead, wife gone, children if any
grown & out of state, a broken

branch of a bleeding heart.
He needs what can’t be had
since priests have failed & police
can’t replace them. This two-bit
town in our soon-to-fail nation
has no store, no bar, no rest house,
no soup kitchen, no place to go
day or night. Drunk & disorderly

sirens yowl, blue lights blaze.
The fellow is a local. What good
is being a local if here includes
no community to take you in?

fawns crisscross sunshine
wildflowers daub the leafy loam
a congregation of songbirds
flit through a thicket’s maze

green meets green meets green
fetor wicks up from black mire
woodpeckered trees await wind
the lurch & whump of falling

the guard fox barks, yearning
fills the swirling clouds of gnats
silver of late afternoon
newts freckle water weeds

This December’s bird count
includes individuals mislaid
or forgotten by fall’s migration.
One rears a late hatch
a second clings to a mate
of another species, a third
sings so long it misreads
leaf-fall for the rite of spring.
These poor few will quake
& slump & die over winter.
They will make up no part of
spring’s count. No one
save a stray god will mark
their loss, bless their bones.

We walk a slow three miles along a forest trail
pawed by game, rutted by melt & frequent rain.
Thousands of wildflowers spring from leaf-fall —
trout lily, trillium, bloodroot, dutchman’s breeches
noble hepatica, blue cohosh, early meadow rue.
Only near the end do I start to stumble, my eight-
decade-old feet beginning to flag, the rest of me
wanting to be stronger, to walk & witness longer
but also to be sitting back in the car. My brother
stumbles all the distance but pays age no mind.
My grandchildren, white sneakers caked with mud,
thumbs now & again on phones, all but prance.

we lie scattered
like the contents of an upturned purse

his motorcycle stalled & steaming
the driver reaches
hot hands to noonday sun

I stumble to my feet
one child clutched in my arms
the other child in a bush across the road

as we were falling I thought
this is death, & it’s okay
because we’re all so happy to be alive

shakily, we reassemble
incomprehensibly, no one’s hurt

the driver rights his toppled ride
one foot peg is skewed
the gas tank bears a fresh indent

rainbows marble
the spray of gravel that spilled us

a rustling from the brush
yields three women sheathed
crown to sole in dusty black

squealing, crooning
syllables we can’t decipher

they unwrap hard candies
push them into the children’s mouths
then all of us, helplessly, laugh

the day darkens
until I can no longer read

I wait, my cat waits
a squirrel arcs through fallen leaves
across the yard into woods

until the day brightens
abruptly, as if
the end of the day runs backward
until I can read again

the moon, the sun
paint shadows on my page

what I feel to be snowed in
(ten inches in twenty hours)
is relief, I’m grateful
for everything I cannot do — 
drive out into the greater world
meet others, satisfy needs
all these are denied me

I’m inside, warm & dry
the cats asleep for another
day & night, nothing
to watch through iced-over
glass, squirrels & birds
hunkered wherever they hunker
when snow covers all

my red car is white
my white house nearly
disappears, the moon slings
long shadows of tall trees
morning’s rays will melt
what’s frozen, woo what hides
stiff limbed, blurry eyed

bundled up (snow pants
fat parka) I’ll shovel
(sate my urge to move about)
even without somewhere to go
someone to see beyond
these forms caged in crystal — 
time to set us free

woodchuck, whistlepig, Marmota monax
I’ve seen no fresh rootling since fall
the burrow holes — one north, one east —
lie leaf covered, ringed by dry rubble

yet my groundhog can’t be still asleep
not in this too warm faux-spring
when black bears are out, gouging
black smears across muddy ground
hungry to nobble the feeblest scent

thoughts of my groundhog energize me
— warm brown bristles, snub nose —
likely I’ll find him when a cat on a sill
stiffens & stares — look, life, out there
I too might well, with warmth, emerge

the twinge of discomfort in my ribcage
is medium sized, the latest new pain
I know some in my situation would call
a doc, & the doc would schedule machines
to tell me nothing or diagnose disease

so I don’t call, instead I ask my ribcage
why don’t we build a wildlife retreat?
collect fallen branches into large piles
where mice & moles, beetles & bees
can sleep & breed — my ribcage agrees

a warm March 4th, it’s 50 out, I pull on
cotton camouflage pants, a light fleece, 
work boots, work gloves, a blue cap
by the third branch the ribcage teaser
disappears, I’m young again, I believe

my dead grow larger, as if to punish me for all
I failed to do, what I hadn’t time for, what I
didn’t know I needed — all those halcyon days

when love seemed lined up, ready to be taken
when joy could be enjoyed, then left behind for
the next joy — days of, years of joy with no idea

what dearth lay ahead when age would claim
its due — all you who died before your time
died in passion’s arms — Patroclus, Antigone —

you were not like I am, the living & the dead

We learn the truth about friendship 
through the death of our family & friends.
Once the punishing weight of grief winds down
we experience the presence of the dead.
They talk to us, & we talk to them.
We not only remember but feel our mutual love.
It is not that we are strong enough to do without them
but that they stay with us forever.
They appear, observe, wonder, remark, remind us
not who they were but who they are to us.

We didn’t cry
when we left.
We had no time
no tears
no farewell
we had no goodbye.
We had no idea
this was goodbye
the goodbye
so how would we have cried?
We didn’t lie awake
(we didn’t sleep)
the night we left.
That night
we had no night
no light
the moon didn’t rise.
That night we lost the star
our lamp, gone
our share of sleep
not denied us
so how would we lie awake?

curved rumps & lowered heads 
of thirty black cows crop through thin snow
to grass almost summer green

fern fronds arc, mossy boulders glow
broad-leaved weeds & perennials
unfurl soft green leaves

rivers swing from freeze to thaw
soft lake-ice clumps, low mounds of snow
melt in warmth & rain

hiking trails are frozen, saturated, puddled
pulsing winds fracture forests
soil shifts, houses tumble

this planet we’ve forced to meet our needs
bends every straight line
breaks down asphalt, concrete, steel

degree by degree, earth reverts to round

a year consists of twelve months
a month of three ten-day weeks
all honor what farm & nature bring

Véndemiaire stamps the vintage red
Brumaire fog swallows cranberry
Frimaire frost crusts the standing weeds

no more gods, death to the last king

Nivôse snow floats, flurries, drifts
Pluviôse proffers rain
Ventôse favors wind

high regard for weather, water, air

Germinal marks the rupture of seed
Floréal waves its blossoms
Prairial sheep hike to high meadow

the earth’s body, the sky’s face

Messidor farmers harvest peas
Thermidor heat hatches mosquitoes
Fructidor fruit swells, sweetens, savors

nature, people, tools, reason

finally,  Les Fêtes Sansculottides
five days (in La Franciade, six)
when free citizens dance & sing

oh, January snow, how
you fall, dry & light
all morning & most of
the afternoon, as if
a being — intelligent &
rational — ran the show

not that such a being
exists, no, snow’s from
a rulebook humans are
ever learning to read

these days they claim
to “know” about gravity
pressure, temperature
& yes, the ion game —
intermolecular bonds
ergo, voila, snow

yet (I’m licking my paw)
they can’t actually see
electron pairs bond
(whisker twitch) though

certain 21st-century
wunderkind skilled in
microscopy claim
to see them — but why
go on about science?
I’d rather see a mouse

running on snow

I sit in a raised box
among eleven others
while a judge (overly
fond of the qualifying
clause) delivers 
remarks about justice. 

I pay attention. I try
to map his reasoning
onto Boolean logic —
IF (x AND y) OR (NOT b)
OR k, THEN q, ELSE p — 
but I cannot parse.

When he asks me
if I believe I can weigh
evidence, make a judgment
based on the law
I say, I imagined I might
before you spoke

but you’ve convinced me
I cannot. He frowns.
He signals the clerk
to lead me down & out.
Had I stayed, I’d not
have played at being god.

purples, erupts, exfoliates
think & say whatever you will
the body is you & doesn’t give
a fig about you, it magnifies
& depletes you, elates & defeats you
your body makes or breaks you

you pay attention, fight back
or you pretend to pay it no mind
all this intention, much as it may
amuse you, wastes your time
whatever your body wants to do
it does, tra la la, despite you

one mouse steals traps — picture
one foot caught under the metal bar
three feet racing toward the hole
dragging the trap behind, she chews
her leg free, sad, but she’s alive

so far she’s stolen three traps
she’s down to one foot — picture her
slow hop to the hole, nestmates
helping her pull the trap home
feet the other mice might eat

another story is three mice lose
one foot each — picture the farce
oh, our world, rife with cameras & mics
but none expose this lair, how
mice view traps, the tales they share

when I neared
the fraught age of
early adolescence
my mother relayed
the legend of an infant
resplendent in white silk & lace
stowed away on an ocean liner
departing Le Havre

approaching New York
the captain pressed for
a Christian benefactor
from those traveling first class
e.g., my great-great-grandfather
an Episcopal divine
this child became
my great-grandmother Genevieve

when any woman in our family
strayed, whether they
dropped out of school or used drugs
shacked up or got knocked up
or married down or
heaven forfend, divorced
my mother hastened to blame
that foreign blood

women have more to lose
than men, she’d say
& warn me once again 
about that Jezebel, a cousin
reputed to fool around
hubris not to be condoned
only men
could play Don Juan

a woodpecker
I know by sound
strobes from tree to tree
black white black white
red head — I move
it disappears

nearby a hollow cone
augers into a mossy
pine — gray bark
torn down to wine red
down to carroty orange
to ivory splinters

the cone’s tip
is a tenebrous hole
fringed by velvety shreds
at the tree's core
a murky depth
not heartwood

as if the pine trunk
held not inner
but outer space
a macrocosm
pileated woodpecker
hammers its way to

she’s a natural here
                              winter woods
          snow, snow melt

                                                            grainy slabs of basalt
                                        yet tense, fearful
                                                                                grief has her 

here where once she strode
                              now she’s dimmed
          so fruitless to say

                                                            time heals — nothing heals, though time
                                        blurs, softens, mutes
                                                                                & nothing stops

pain, ready
                              every second
          to flare, to flame

                                                            yet sunshine on snow
                                        boosts albedo
                                                                                cools the earth

two blue bars painted on a tree trunk
tell me the trail turns here, left or right
not specified, so I go left into unbarred wild
farther & farther — I know I’m wrong
though what is wrong about here vs there?
woods is woods, the mountain
never asked to be surveyed, to be signed
to be designated human-friendly space

by the time I make it back to the two bars
I know at least which way the trail
does not go, I know the freedom of turning
any which way, plus I know what’s growing
inside the root ball of the upturned pine
I’ve scaled the slope down to the water
visited mossy rocks & rills seldom seen
though as lovely as any along the trail

I turn right this time, cross the stream
climb a much steeper hill on a wider trail
truer to call it an old logging road
though no wheeled-beast could step
cautiously across the stream as I did
one foot on one stone, one on another
wishing not to fall & also wishing
yes — heedless, helpless, stunned —
to slip, to fall, to be swept away

It Feels Like Something to Be a Mouse

a gleaned nest — paper, dust, hair —
inside the wall of an old house

she wakes, fully wakes in her bed
to a low growl muffled by a body
clenched in the cat’s teeth

Mus musculus, or some other
lives longer in a house
than outside, tries to winter in

were she to turn on a light
the mouse is peanut size
sprout of tail, pale skeletal feet

drop the mouse
chase the mouse
growl

clenched, released, what the mouse
knows, is run run run

one cat, then the other cat
traps the mouse beneath a paw
trots off growling

no use in her getting up, no use anything
but lie there, over an hour, listening

three weeks to gestate
two more left to wean

morning light, she’ll find
the dead, the partial, or the missing
a streak of blood on a stair

the cats don’t settle, they prowl
inch by inch, eyes
whiskers

inside the wall
too quietly for her to hear
cries & rustlings followed by silence

Passing Grade

                             — with a nod to Charles Olson

yes      And my ass
itches
                 (“What are all these thorns
on the rose?
                               “Good grief, cherie, don’t you know yr ass
from my elbow?”)

Try again
to hold the nut
still
       (yr fist
wrapped around the

handle (greasy, yup

Who does not rip away petals
will never bear fruit
no matter the freezing rain
glazing yr weeds

A Square Corner

completes the back of the house
what a fine idea of yours to leave it
until last, so easy to climb
in & out, birds & wild animals
along with girls & boys, gash of fresh
air, natural light, the random factors
keep the job from becoming stale
different takes on the unexpected
occur & recur, a hailstorm’s
droppings, the bleaching out, shadow
mixing, nettles & claws 
also the circle of chairs the PTA
placed along the driveway
that anyone might sit & watch
all year for discarded trimmings
three bent nails, a sawdust mound
hence analysis won’t be required
everyone already knows
a red clay doorstep is what you want

Who’s on First

surgical removal of the corpus callosum — 
the “wide thick nerve tract connecting the left & right
cerebral hemispheres” — alleviated epilepsy
& also exposed the apparent existence of a second
though speechless self
                                          every time you dither
                                          consider your second self

might epilepsy be the frenzy of too much choice?

in one case the speaking self refused to name
his girl friend, whereas the non-speaking self
wrote down her name
                                        if a second self exists
                                        we must be a committee

neither self is first nor second, they must be peers
                   go to town or stay at home
                   eat lunch or drink beer
                   read a book or sing a song
the one that speaks merely voices the decision

                                              is morality
the voice of our better self? our noisier self?
think about postmortems
                                              pleasure or pain
                                              gain or loss
why would one self be “better” than the other?
surely either self can take either side

what if we were to acknowledge our second self?
if both selves could speak, & simultaneously
would we be able to make decisions?

imagine if we had three cerebral hemispheres

Queen Mab

                      — in re Percy Bysshe Shelley

midst the ebb and flow of human things
the brood of ignorance
crawls on the loathing earth
subjected and plastic, poisonous
and undying worms moulder there

the worm has made his meal
of premature and violent death
living pullies of a dead machine
tendrils of the parasite leave nothing
yet animal life was there

things that walk, swim, creep, or fly
grey light, so cold, so bright, so still
when will the morning come?
broad and yellow moon
but the mushroom of a summer day

Family Reunion

the guest bedroom holds many more things than a bed —
shelving packed with clothes, boxed items, loose items
large & small, dust & cat hair everywhere including
the bedcover — when I pull it back to look at the sheets
I find a cockroach dead on the pillow, the rest of house
mirrors the bedroom, overstocked & undercleaned
I pick at my supper, excuse myself before the others
return to the bedroom where I squirrel cockroach
plus pillow behind a closet door, fully clothed in the bed
I read, worry, barely sleep, & in the morning I stubbornly
tearfully insist that I must leave, everyone’s confused
they protest, later I learn they were irate, I organize
a ride to the airport where I rent a car, drive two days
home, lick my wound — the breach takes forever to heal

Common Sense

if lichens & moss cling with rhizines
with holdfasts to tree bark, to boulders
to glacial erratics . . . if a bowerbird
ferries horsehair, mowed hay, hedge
trimmings, fern fronds, blueberries
weaves all to a cavernous nest . . . if
an animal has pockets, has a pocket
carries in her pocket a wooden bead
a rusted ball bearing, a cashew nut
any kind of amulet, of charm . . . how
can we fathom what anything else feels?

who is doing all this work on this old house?
painting & repairing & paying to have it repaired
a last-gasp house I’ll no doubt be pried out of 
when sense or mobility deserts me, yet this week
I search with an electronic tool for wall studs
pound finishing nails into baseboards my brother
ripped to the chosen width, I measure, saw, & sand
paint & repaint, all to better the appearance of
hide the faults of a hundred-year-old house
I trust will last decades longer than I will
no paint or boards or nails can slow my ruin
deepening fissures fill with tears from eyes
too slack to hold them, not grief but leakage
every night in dreams I play my younger self

the cleft between two wooded slopes
becomes a crowded spill of colors
yellow & orange, yellow & ochre & red
intense & dense as a Bach fugue
notes falling & rising, voice by voice
a rippling wave where cause & effect 
dissolve & integrate, where utter love
pours from me to the leaves
where leaves cascade love at me
love for what the universe can do

                   — in memory of Hannah Arendt

the raccoon curls as if sleeping, nose tucked
toward a belly fat from summer feed
the lustrous black-ridged tail of a gray fox
skunk’s pungence, hawk’s wing
twigged legs of an antlered deer
these bloodied remnants soil the road

      as inescapable a part of ourselves
      as the snail’s shell is to its occupant

out of the raccoon’s eyes looks
a Palestinian child, a questioning gaze
as child & raccoon endure their mutual fate
curl & are curled as if sleeping
the two as one being, the raccoon no less
no more than the Palestinian child

      violence changes the world, but the most
      probable change is a more violent world

I can’t say I’ve paid a coyote
perilous trek to the Texas border

I can’t say I’m crossing the Mediterranean
small boat with ninety others

I can’t say I’ve been confined twenty years
tin shack in a barbed-wire camp

I can’t say I was driven from my homeland
colonial fiat favoring European Jews

I can’t say bombs level my city
rubble my building, maim my children

what I can say is I’m pretending to be safe
here in the global north

I can say I forgo meat, shun plastics
& won’t fight back

when barbarians — people just like me
burst through the gates

my mother fed me stories
bite by bite with my daily rusk
word by word, hour by hour
a shield, a siege, a bow, an oar

I listened while she dangled treats
sang the runes, embraced
me in her shawl, wrapped me warm
through Mediterranean nights

long before I conned meaning
I prattled verses back to her
courtesy, feasting, kings & slaves
quarrels staged as sea voyages & killing

animals too, hunting dogs, birds & bats
sheep & swine & the hecatombs — 
not numbers, not graves, but oxen
raised for the altar, tributes to gods

once I understood, I added beats
a scar, a rooted bed, a loom like my mother’s
& I her midnight unraveler
proving what I must remember

those were days when I saw light
saw rather than felt the break of day
you strum the lyre, she said, you hear
you feel, you sing, you will never want

so I became one of the chosen 
daughters of the mothers’ line
our fingers webbed with weaving
we relate so the rest may see

snow brings proof of what’s rarely seen
though here all year — rabbits, bobcat, deer —
crisscrossing the yard from dusk to dawn
leading non-human lives out of sight
except for chewed flora, scat heaps
the disappearance of chicken bones
I toss out the back door, I count how many
toes there are, wonder at their unwatched
yet vital goings on, how they survive
despite us, how they hope we disappear