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I guess it’s fairly organized,
I mean, the stream nicely divides
two hills from each other, and trees
grow up the ridge—there’s open ground,
and above it a hundred vultures turn
like clockwork, black gears in the sky,
and there’s a snake, and a little girl
who’s picking speckled violets,
and, following a sense of order,
she’s turning, too, in absolute
delight. I just can’t see one part
existing, or meaning really, without
requiring every other part
also to exist and to mean and, when
you think of heavenlier things—

        In Piero della Francesca’s
“Flagellation of Christ,”
            The room is needlessly spacious

        For the blunt work at hand.
Three figures in the foreground
            Take no notice of the violence.

        Except for the purpose
Of composition,
            They are superfluous.

I’m trying to love you, Riley, neighbor, as
you try nonstop to woof flip-flop (whip-whop,
hip-hop, rip-rop, bip-bop)—just let me
count the ways—but can’t master that fl.

Your master, Neighbor Pug, absent or deaf
like mine, doesn’t notice your wakefulness,
your dogged practice—Wachet auf,
git-eff, auf-up—or alarming faithfulness

as you lift your voice—ruft uns die Stimme—bow
to the four corners of your echoing fence, ruf-ruf,
and with all your God-given strength, wow

Here’s your Ash Wednesday story.
A mother carries her tiny daughter
With her as she gets ashed and the
Girl, curious and wriggly, squirms
Into the path of the priest’s thumb
Just as the finger is about to arrive
On the mother’s forehead, and the
Ashes go right in the kid’s left eye.
She starts to cry, and there’s a split
Second as the priest and the mother
Gawk, and then they both burst out
Laughing. The kid is too little to be
Offended, and the line moves along,
But this stays with me; not the ashy