By Charles Simic

From Charon's Cosmology, Brazillier, New York, 1977

 

  ODE
 
You who are about to
be over looked 

in the heat of, the joy of
the argument

the intangible
I cheat you out of 

innocently 
and with regret 

for such is the spirit 
of the law.

                                 *

The mystery of all that is familiar: 

the living maze 
of the moving fingers 

which determines 
once and for all 

the fall of the dice.

Endless nostalgia 
for the concrete

something we could 
sink our teeth in

the accompanying 
story

of it's remarkable properties
to amuse, to astonish

to ease our 
suffering.

                               *

To you who remain 
a probability

strict condition
of the invisible

variable of the imminent

I make these offerings.

                                 *

Because the light is always with us
and the hush of an early morning

time propitious to plain speech

space between the premonition 
and the event

the small lovely realm 
of the possible.
 

Other Simic online:

Poetry Daily! Yee-Haw!!
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