New Formalists

The rumpled sun wakes up to survey the earth,
glaring down the patternless stars. I stretch
and find myself observed by a broken statue,
    the goddess Euterpe,

once the centerpiece of this formal garden,
now the muse of flowers and vines run free.
The garden is still beautiful in its way, but
    where is the music?

The sun’s blank gaze insists there is no way back:
Change was growth. I answer that change outlasts,
invents, forgets, replaces, remeasures, circles
    and breaks from its bounds, while

the raveled smoke of human endeavor waits
to turn the sunset glorious. In the dark,
I will watch as, rising, the constellations
    pattern the fields.