Every Life

-And right before daybreak the little owl returned:
two small solid o's,
like napkin holders.

Then the briefer, brighter o's of another bird of prey,
not a victim,
came across the field to welcome her.

Dawn has four stages. In the third,
everything chooses how much more it will become;
until then,
the door is the same color as the hinge,

poems fit into other poems, every life
fits into every life,
bright into dark, not deciding.
After that,

the wall notices the shadow pulled out of the soul,
gray as a puritan

and the brave, dreamy hyacinth starts to be seen--

could the garden have said
to the gardener, I made you grow? They were
beside one another.

Could that which was not yet
press forward in the world? It seemed for a brief time
it could--