Tribute to Gertrude Stein

The Decision

With wonder the lines squirm and merge encased in the outlet desperately

Heard above the voices of tall and true, and dancing in that shade of doom.  

To count them would be the news of the century, 

The last shining sound of the last woman's company of withering columns of grey. 

 I'd stay and listen to this one's stature of purpose and not fittingly drive it away.  

The gesture of lilacs and covers with stitches and bandages all float and are tamed.  

Its lost once again the distant brilliance of whispers turned to the sun, 

The last rosy petal of passion and fashion and fruit with the fearless grows dim.  

In the instance of fortune we cast out the groom and feed all the others some dew, 

To lift up the chair, to find nothing there, is the emblem of me and you.  

The geese are the leaders of the broken and weariless, wild with rational plot, 

The things we remember are two-fold and gender is really the word that is not.  

You can't slight the sea with rote memory, you can't bite the roof of the barn, 

You can only decide with glassy eyes about baskets of honey and jam.