What is Significant
by Alan L. Birkelbach


Sitting on a bench at the dog park
a younger woman, someone who I
assumed was intelligent
because she was attractive,

said to me, “You have a dangerous dog breed.”
A single man has to double-consider
statements like that.

When God leaned over to Adam
with that fingertip cosmic spark
I’d like to think he said a few words,

which truly if God is anything like man--he would,
filling the space with meaningless chatter.
“Go get ‘em, tiger!”

There’s how we measure beauty.
And how we talk about it,
the lines that ignore we were just dust yesterday,

but today we don’t know how to talk
about when the leaves will change color,
about what is safe, unsafe, unchangeable.

There is a Providence in the perfect fold of a napkin.
There is sound in the light that the moon reflects.
Every day there is yearning, and more yearning still.






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