Snowy Salon, Salt Lake City, 20 January 2018

Here is a penny bent, and here is a penny

Scratched. Here is a penny melted. Zoom

Down to atoms and each one has changed,

But some of the pattern, even in the puddled

Coin, remains the same. Is that it, then?

Is it pattern, relationship that isn’t always

Change? The ship of Theseus, Locke’s sock,

Grandfather’s axe, Kossuth’s pocket knife—

There never was a paradox, never needed

A formal cause, because the only thing

That was ever moment to moment the same,

The only aspect that made for similarity 

Never inhered in any material part, not even

In the merest wave, but dreamed within

The relationships that could be dasselbe.

But no, watching the snow, I know 

That’s not enough. A relationship between

Changed items may be similar but not

Exactly the same. And nothing can ever be

Similar, if nothing is ever exactly the same.

The snow lies white on the open ground

And clings to every twig, which is the same

As saying it lies and clings within my brain.