To Be of Substance



You should listen well and behave yourself
then sit down.

You should not have rare theorems
but fiddle for love.

Pick up flowers
without knowing it or them.

Seers pass you unseeing.
You pass them, seeing too much.
The madeup faces of things 
having been passed
make a shelter of intriguing smallness.

You will be asked to speak.  The necks of exotics 
may lower to hear.
There is a reluctance.  Mortality, shyness.

The feeling someone is writing 
what you're thinking 
doesn't quite let go of you, hospitable, in your prime.

Ah the dense copse of luck, all the time
going around knowing, the lure of smiles
like kids in hard countries, running up, tugging.




© Copyright 2004 Peter Chapman

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