See the dust
encrusted with dry rock

and you don’t think
flood zone,

water scouring sage brush
instead of brittle wind,

but it’s happened.
Block ice slouches

in the glass, dessert heat
demostrates the facility

of state change.
See a lazy wheeling hawk,

think gyre, gyre,
getting wider–

do things really fall apart?
Or just slump forward

in apathy?
Define a hole:

a lack of matter–
evil is nothing

but the absence
of empathy.

Say evil is nothing, see,
evil is nothing.

The hawk flies off.
Say in Bethlehem,

oh, whatever.
Say a clear blue sky

as if it belies
the existence of rain,

and when that hillside goes
pretend to be surprised–

say it, say it,
it couldn’t happen here.