Monday Poem

Expect nothing and nothing
will come bearing something
—sure thing

Sure Thing

This is how the world began:
expecting nothing

but see how something
(a blazing ball
caroming off the tip of Kepler’s cue)
breaks the horizon
trailing a passionate veil of crimson light
which sets the sea afire with fierce luminescence
and me with fierce delight

this is how it is:
the earth, without expectation,
became a seething knot of azurite,
its nourishing greens and blues
spun from the cornucopia of nada
as if nothing’s empty store
were a well of even more

this is how it was:
I sat upon a diner stool
elbows on the countertop
forearms straddling my book
like the legs of that Colossus
astride the harbor door of Rhodes
scanning the sea for future ghosts
and you came with carafe and side of toast

and nothing—
nothing expected could compare
with your unanticipated eyes
and chestnut hair

by Jim Culleny,
12/31/11