If you think about it too long,
you may well crumble —
I mean, not well — I mean might,
you know what I mean, don’t you?

If you go for long walks, even
with music in, at some point
when one song fades out before
the next crashes in, the chirps bleed
through and you remember
that robins sing the cheer-up
song and the Little Brown Jobs
have gossip-fests and you are not
alone, the one who keeps an eye out
for the sparrow cares about you too

If you remember your Gerard
Manley Hopkins, you realize you thought
that God in his heaven guaranteed
all right with the world, but can
you reverse it? If the world is screwed,
can God still be in his heaven?
I know of whitewashed walls
that would argue the point
and I know of other walls —
empty walls — that don’t constrain him