like the stagehands who wheeled out the sun when the actor
was under the moon;
like the scientist who thought the seeds of trees
blown into the sea make birds—
“I have seen them fly from the waters,” he wrote;
like me saying my father died last night—
he died ten years ago;
like Newton dividing white light
into the seven colors of the spectrum for the seven notes
of the musical scale for any other way would break
the Pythagorean principle of harmony.