212

The carriage resonated with the
Force of its uneven passage :
            I felt my body tense to it
In accommodation as inertia

Held me first here, then here,

            As if the process by which

Providence stationed the elements
Of reality were continually in
            Review. My body a subject
            Only, the incidental conduit
            Of some far and other object
            Without our mundane sense.

            So, I drew a solace into
This scattershot momentum.
The participal of my existence,
    Held in the causes of all such
    Great machinery, the weight
And fuel and carnage of it forging
From station to lighted station.

The plain words of a life without
Emergency, spoken each in turn.