Wetland jades rose and fell in mild swellings,
potent and cool in mossy constancy
cut only by the dry-blooded berm of road,
itself higher than horizon,
no tree or shrub to be seen;
greens nearly glowing under cement sky
dark with oil.

My companions, enraptured with their own reasons:
the old man's knee-grip,
anxious after the whereabouts of his wife;
the woman's furtive note-taking;
the sullen-eyed boy who offered his name to none of us;
my own not-quite-understanding of where we were going
or what we were to do.

But it became obvious as we stepped from the car--
The building at once parchment white
and stained by birdshit and innumerable rains,
four rotted doors upon the facing side
and without window--
Each entry unmarked, but we, without knowledge, knew:
one was Love and one Wisdom;

A third, Peace; the last, Genius.
And the boy opened his, to a subtlety of rusted cages.
And the old man's remains locked.
And the woman entered to the hung bodies of pale flowers,
an empty banquet table set only with candelabra.
My own, I will not speak of it,
but that it does not matter which we chose.