softly dying world

soft death the dying that is what

takes place between one moment and another

between the dark times and the postwar

a moment in which it is impossible to think

either of these as not being there

so that dark times and postwar

merge and nothing else emerges

even though there is something else there

where we are

there where

in this domesticated swell

the land—because what is not

clips forward

paces itself out

over all the years

in Minnesota, anywhere,

people look away

from the sides of the road

these minor escarpments

their dearthed insides

and wild overflower

falling forever

something

in the what is not at all rare

in the enabling to fall

think about how softly the whole thing

takes place, has taken place

the falling off

the falling into

the falling away

the fall out

the falling without
feeling the falling forever