I

“There is one and only one . . .”

So was your fortune told,
as the palm reader scanned
the past, the present
and future, and then went on
in the telling
of an inexplicable journey.

II

I see lines that cross,
that travel together
and seem to part again.

I see a large flock of birds
circling a single figure,
and somewhere nearby
a small burial is taking place,
with the sound of dirt
hitting a cardboard box.

And once more the lines converge,
are thickened with grieving
and unexplained departures.
I see a forest path; beside it
a waterfall, and someone
diving repeatedly into a pool.

I see a house, divided by many rooms.
Three children are searching
the hallways and opening doors;
they enter a smaller room
and vanish into another country.

I see honor and happiness there.

And you and I were together there,
waking and sleeping, speaking
the names we were given,
“. . . as if we did not know
each other well, but our souls did.”

I see how it all combines
and reassembles, completed in this
one unfailing image—a woman
telling fortunes, casting
the future in someone’s open palm:

“There is one and only one . . .”

III

The forest path is empty.

That house and its people,
the search and the children’s story,
dissolve to an open park
where someone is throwing a ball
at the root of a tree;
others, silent and grouped
at a distance, are keeping score.

And all these characters and scenes
are displaced by shadows
that loom and slowly clear . . .
In that improbable, fantastic place
I shall be planted somewhere
with trees and natural stones,
turned slowly round
in the hollow of obedient earth.

And you, awake in the world,
without a shadow and less
than human, your ghost children
driven before you
down the cobbled mazes—
mouth open,
cropped hair in a fiery light,
and your finally stricken heart,
wondering and amazed . . .

—1991-93

—John Haines