…there is no end to the kindness of this world

For the worm in the breast is still, though the slug
beneath the stone may have shredded the leaf to lace—

For the square of grass has brightened gradually
in the sun, and the smell of burnt toast and coffee

mingles with the morning air— For the jellyfish
stabbed more than fifty times in its petri dish

has miraculously come back to life,
for the aging scientist to feed by hand—

For paper lanterns have lifted into the sky,
tiny fires ablaze in their bellies, allowing a sea

of faces to look straight up into the dark— For our
tired feet and fumbling fingers, uncertain hearts,

our clumsy, uncombed foliage: the only flags we know
to hoist with the halyard each anointed day.

In response to thus: no end to the kindness of this world.