Poetry falters in my hands. The words withdraw into themselves, and nobody can lift them to meaning. They slip into forest paths that end in wilderness, lie by alluring rivers, traverse all the fields and lantern-lit huts between places. All the earth separating destinations is theirs to walk, and they do so leisurely, quickening as night sets its table in the sky. They stop then, aware of how far they have come, and sigh, knowing they have reached no new land. They fall, all of them, and nobody understands where they once meant to go.