Falling

This tree keeps falling over. I prop it up,
it falls again. And the rain falls
day after day like a broken wet record.
Here are the birds—tiny, smaller

than birds. And like fresh butcher’s
paper, the light so bright it hurts.
So the birds are paper and so is the sky.
It will be easiest if I draw you a picture,

each of us a different shade of gray.
What goes right is an accident. It can’t
be blamed on us. What goes wrong

is almost impossible to see. How quickly
it disappears, like someone’s hand
into someone else’s pocket.

—Matthew Thorburn.

(Image found here.)