Making

“What made this happen?”
you ask every time

as if
compulsion itself
were mandatory,

the way light travels
at the speed of light

“because it must”

*

It is in no sense
essential

that this crown of leaves,
sifted by wind

as if turning over
some problem,

is a gray-green
brightening into rust-red

at the tips

or that its equivocations
fill this instant

to the brim.

*

While light
has caught up

to itself
again

and only seems
to be making

time