We stacked the seasoned timber when the equinox arrived Four hundred paperbacks arranged to keep the mind revived Each buckram spine aligned along the whitewashed eastern wall A regiment of blueprints for the autumn and the fall We drew the coastal transit routes in graphite on the chart And wownd the budding runner beans to jump-and-running start A numbered brass indicator riveted to the scheme A promise that tomorrow would outrun the previous dream The clean agenda thickens in the sideboard drawer below Unopened, crisp, and yellowing as seasons come and go The acid drains in silence from the casing in the clock A trickle through the floor joists underneath the mortise lock We Settle Down Like Sediment Along The Easy Groove! We Wait Upon The Promise That We Never Had To Prove! The Current Bleeds In Whispers Down The Iron Keyhole Siv! We Freeze The Master Outline Just To Settle How We Live! Ambition cleared the transom without leaving any trace The whistling brass tea kettle keeps its designated place We skip the pressure testing when the midday whistle blows And memorize the murmur where the maple floorboard goes A sanctuary carved inside the dull and dialed repeat Two china mugs at eight o'clock, identical and neat While airborne gray detritus gathers thickly on the stack Of unread treaties waiting for a train that won't come back The dry-stone boundary wall dissolved before the mortar set We pushed the channel crossing back to circumvent the wet Then April slipped to August, and a decade crept away Preserving every slipcover in disciplined decay Until the stiff convention fits exactly like a brace Until the narrow groove becomes the only dwelling place We Settle Down Like Sediment Along The Easy Groove! We Wait Upon The Promise That We Never Had To Prove! The Current Bleeds In Whispers Down The Iron Keyhole Siv! We Freeze The Master Outline Just To Settle How We Live! The glue gives out along the stitched and quartered seam The bleached carbon washes from the master dream Clear the desk Drop the latch The catalog is sealed tonight
