When It Comes

Any time. Now. The next minute.
Years from today. You lean forward
and wait. You relax, but you don't forget.

Someone plans an elaborate party
with a banquet, dancing, even fireworks
when feasting is over. You look at them:–

All those years when you searched the world
like a ferret, these never happened–your marriage,
your family, prayers, curses. Only dreams.

A vacuum has opened everywhere. Cities,
armies, those chairs ranked in the great
hall for the audience–there isn't anyone.

Like a shutter the sky opens and closes
and the show is over. The next act
will deny that anything ever happened.

Your hand falls open. It is empty. It never
held a knife, a flower, gold,
or love, or now. Lean closer–

Listen to me: there isn't any hand.

-- William Stafford, from The Answers Are Inside the Mountains