Life’s simplicity recedes
like a friend waving goodbye
in the rear-view mirror.
I strain to detect some small detail
before dust and distance and complexity
obscure it all.
Innocence dissipates
like the warmth of sunlit stone
on an autumn evening
cooling to jaded non-existence.
Certainty evaporates
like the water of a meadow pond
dried and desiccated by summer’s heat
into alkaline salt—reduced but intensified.
Thus the great reduction comes
inexorable and uninvited.
Is this knowledge to impart or obscure?
to tell the young of its approach
or better leave them to learn on their own.
Granolativity 