Love, Delight, and Alarm [excerpt]

Then the treehouse burned. And continued

                                                                                        unobliterable as the sea

                                            to burn. The photo of it burning

hangs on its wall, taken from high up,

                                            but not that high. The firemen

approach cautiously, minus the

                                            four-part regimented solace, that

would repeat. If the act of 

                                            painting is Drawing the boundaries

of a fire, can I disappear

                                            into the initial combustion? If the

act of painting stops time or at

                                            least its cornet of fronted tremendous,

I could disappear into the Encyclopedia

                                            of Animal Life as the cherub's sleepiest

wet tusk. I could start with a dexterous

                                            periscope and end by feeling 

time, the largest block of it

                                            I can conceive collectively

                                                                                        Smell I the flowers, or thee?
                                                                                        See I lakes, or eyes?