Here's what we do know--
Tulips are failing from the weight of dew.
Bird song blows from the trees,
lands on the grave.
Someone squeezes my hand.

There is no word or name
for such contrasts. Not accident.
Not tragedy. Not end.
The sound a shovel makes
when it's stopped digging,
just before the opposite.

Sometimes I hate all words,
Like the ones we use
to name unnamable things—
famine, love, night.
Tulips quiver in the unseen wind.

I squeeze back and a word is born
and blows away before being named.
A hole is dug and filled.
A world is made and buried away.