Order of Arrival

distant thoughts fall off
mental tree limbs
making no sounds at all,
not even to the trained listener,
if there is not intent;
distant thoughts burrow

into the hollows
of ignorance when allowed
to be sold at auction;
memories and cures and
cures for memories are rolled
up in uneaten rice paper
and laid on a heated hearth
to be cooked carefully
in order of their arrival;
a journey ends
as a new one begins
even before it was intended
and we see no harm
in the allusion of growth
or in its illusion of progress
as either way they
both cook away on the
slow fires of life in
the order of their arrival.

8Aug16