<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr">My Debt<div><br></div><div><div>Like all</div><div>who believe in the senses,</div><div>I was an accountant,</div><div>copyist,</div><div>statistician.</div><div><br></div><div>Not registrar,</div><div>witness.</div><div><br></div><div>Permitted to touch</div><div>the leaf of a thistle,</div><div>the trembling</div><div>work of a spider.</div><div><br></div><div>To ponder the Hubble’s recordings.</div><div><br></div><div>It did not matter</div><div>if I believed in</div><div>the party of particle or of wave,</div><div>as I carried no weapon.</div><div><br></div><div>It did not matter if I believed.</div><div><br></div><div>I weighed ashes,</div><div>actions,</div><div>cities that glittered like rubies,</div><div>on the scales I was given,</div><div>calibrated</div><div>in units of fear and amazement.</div><div><br></div><div>I wrote the word it, the word is.</div><div><br></div><div>I entered the debt that is owed to the real.</div><div><br></div><div>Forgive,</div><div>spine-covered leaf, soft-bodied spider,</div><div>octopus lifting</div><div>one curious tentacle back toward the hand of the diver</div><div>that in such black ink</div><div>I set down your flammable colors.</div><div><br></div><div> - Jane Hirshfield</div><br><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>"Be joyful though you have considered all the facts."<div> - Wendell Berry</div></div></div><div><div id="AppleMailSignature" dir="ltr"></div></div></div></body></html>