steinbeckian

begin with the first and then the second word
and the world spins into being, the smallest
indentation on the page, the whiteness,

the strike of the key, the fingertips
tracing the outline of the leaf, a motif
of sea and shore, characters running

out of our past into the transcribed future,
falling in love and marriage, the children
and the dead, a beginning, a middle

and the end of what has become known,
emerging out of the dust, blowing up
out of the wind, watching the scattering

of all that we have loved,
to begin in a new landscape
where no one knows our name