Unknown

Reading Steinbeck in November’s late and

surprising sun, a single rose opening to crimson

on the bush from where the others were cut

to bloom indoors; and from the fecund touch of

his narrative also grows this palpable unknown -

I won’t have it a god’s - but nature’s unnatural threat

years after the grandeur and doom of his

writing about certain uncertainty in its poise.

Now how to strike a balance, convince you

my telling and feelings are as real, the true

thrall of the tale as much in that bud here in this

garden where I sit reading and drinking coffee,

domestic and eased and fortunate, but still to sense

and worry as well how something is growing awry.