[Poem] Small and Fragile Things

2009-03-22 @ 2:38 p.m.

there is a world of
small things fragile
with anticipation or
regret and
when I breathe in
do I breathe in
those small
fragile
things?

a universe of fragile things like
daisy petals and babies' hands
and fronds of ferns
and paper cranes
that wilt and melt in rain

and the slender bending necks
of swans and ladies

careful to recognize I take
slow breaths and try
to smell and taste these
small fragile things which
in being consumed (by lung or light)
become
a part
of me

like paper cranes and
paper cuts and
paper traced with the careful scrawl
of love notes or reminders
or the last refrain
of a hopeless person embracing
suicide

so fragile
so broken

this world is brimful,
dripping,
pervaded, consumed
by small and fragile things
that break and wound

with their own electric strength

I wonder
how many kings
have fallen
to the whims, curses and delicacies
of small and fragile things