All newness comes into the world through this,
the familiar portal, the same through which
you came into the world when you were new.
Snow falls through it on a dark winter’s night.
Each crystal, distinct and intricate,
generates while passing through the door.

The words are here, each spoken long before.
But, in their collective, meaning starts from scratch.
What makes it novel? And the problem: how
to get one’s hand upon that burnished knob.

February 6, 1996

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