DEPENDS

DEPENDS

mansion is
mountain

high
above base camp

high
above
anything

mountain
of responsibility

a whole
community
an economy

the very image
of the architecture
of division and
hierarchy

upon which
it all depends
bread
and butter depends

about which
I am alertly aware
a poem being
a ledger, a cashbook,
a financial transaction

to choose
to write one
you have to worry
where
   the next one
will be coming from
where it
all comes from

where you are
     going to find them
all those symbols, those
                              words

anxiety of
supply and demand