I have my reasons

have never known starvation nor plenitude
and unless the order of the world 
changes, I won’t. 
If the order of the world changes, I will 
disappear, the way some vowels 
elide into their word-bodies 
or an individual blade recedes 
into a field each season.

Will my daughter carry on this way? 
I cannot yet tell her qualities— 
if she prefers scale to chance, sequence to random. 
And this may mean nothing. 
I find chaos theory appealing, and eavesdrop on talk 
of black holes, chasms, any abyss 
that fetters sense. I relish 
the desultory in many matters, 
am slovenly, a slacker, a slave to caprice. 
Except with the letters.

There is such thing as a calling
though I cannot speak for prophets or martyrs. 
I have been summoned 
by people of stature and the low-stationed, 
comrade and debutante alike. 
My eyes suffer, and my hands, my back.