What We Want of Everything

Again, as every child knows, is one of the most powerful words in the language.

–James Longenbach

What wonder when we ponder

 not the eternal

recurrence of the same, that

 frame too fathomless

for feeling or real perception,

 but rather simple

repetition in our daily lives:

 the mail arrives,

water loosens from the tap,

 the sun sets

and bats incise purpureal air

 in precise slants

and swoops, the evening breeze

 picks up where

the afternoon breeze left off,

 and what we

want of everything is more,

 as much as

the world will grant us

 from its store

of sensualities unhurriedly handed out—

 just the roughness

of unsanded wood bequeaths us

 a strange enoughness,

giving, when we drag daydreams

 against its grain,

a thumb-purr that always makes

 again a gain.

STEPHEN KAMPA