no sky is crystalline
no eyes are limpid pools
no tender glances liquefy the very ice of the alpen peaks

the world is not a human description

the sky’s molecules move independently of one another
the eyes glisten at their centers but end quickly beyond their surfaces
the snow on the mountain will melt in its own time
and love will not conquer all
as anyone can tell you
who has loved and then stopped loving
when they came to mountains that held them back

never trust a poet to tell the truth
because they lie to save their imaginations
from the inability of what is real
to bend itself to their words

if the sky ever decides to crystallize
it will fall with great sharp speed upon us
and the poets will be shredded along with everyone else
if the eyes of your beloved ever become deep water
step away from the edge
before a poem can push you in
and if the mountains ever let their burdens slide all at once
toward the places where we stand fantasizing about them
it will not be love that carries the avalanche downward
but a serene indifference to the nature of our unwillingness
to allow things to be as they are

miraculous
in and of themselves
without any need
of our embellishment