The Decision

The Decision

There is a moment before a shape
hardens, a color sets.
Before the fixative of heat of kiln.
The letter might still be taken
from the mailbox.
The hand held back by the elbow,
the word kept between the larynx pulse
and the amplifying drum-skin of the room's air.
The thorax of an ant is not as narrow.
The green coat on old copper wire weighs more.
Yet something slips through it--
looks around,
sets out in the new direction, for other lands.
Not into exile, not into hope. Simply changed.
As the sandy track-rut changes when called a Silk Road:
it cannot be after turned back from.

--Jane Hirschfield