There are too many finches, too few
              
Darwins. Too many
               
            
baroque Christs glooming
       
from their gilt frames, too few clouds
              
gawking rails of light.
The wren doesn’t stay behind
               
            
to count each flake
              
of snow filling
       
her abandoned nest, which isn’t
               
            
to say she doesn’t
              
consider it
       
dring the taut respites between
               
            
wing-beats.
I look out and I see too many
              
people and too few, which is a different
       
way of saying
              
the same thing, which is a way
       
of saying I’m tired
of saying the same thing, which is a way
              
of saying I find no evidence
       
of change, which is a way
of saying that even
              
decline can be a kind of steadiness.
The archipelago’s isles
              
bunch up
       
in the distance,
but this is a trick
              
of perspective:
       
the straits between
are miles across,
              
and whatever
       
land we settle on
is always wind-swept
              
and wide.