Somewhere a Nation Moves

Rehearsals for the New Order

The courthouse is empty now ablaze
with holly, wreathed and ribboned for the season,
standing firm against a thrill of breezes,
the grinding arcs of stars, grackles crazed
and dizzying the turret, the drunken hair
of winter gardens at its feet, while inside
great mahogany walls, no judge presides,
no footstep polishes the marble stair,
no clerk turns to the window, rubs his eyes
and turns again: time to free the animals
into the evening air, to let them howl
from yard to yard; somewhere a solitary
stem of smoke blossoms from a chimney;
an old man watches his money wither
and rise, then fall again, over and over
without peace; somewhere a nation moves;
its body is a ship foaming in the water;
somewhere a small tree brittles in its silver
and glass; all night we feel the sky there
listening, the tap that drips like tiny hooves.