Rewrite of Finding the Best Poem in the World.

Once there was a rumor
of the best poem in the world.
No one had ever seen it,
save the old sage who sat at home
and did nothing
but read books and pet his cat,
stroking the cat’s dark fur
by candlelight and oil
into early hours, to the constant
metronome of the clock
in the long hallway with faraway shadows.

The poet had presented the piece
to the sage when they both were young, and
there it laid on the gilt table,
sheets fluttering in the wind
from the nearby open window.

The sage pulled a soft stone
from out of a drawer
to hold the words in place.
Gray and smooth,
the rock rested
at peace on the lines
without crushing them.
No tea stains or ink smears
or broken arms.
Just a stone,
lightly at rest
on the milky white sheets
with Indian black cursive
in swirling strokes of constancy.
The sage cradled the young words
with the utmost care.

How can you write something
so lovely,
so intimate
as a woman peeing?
The way her dark curls of hair
descend into the toilet bowl
ringlets of lichen on a tree—
the earthy sound of a miniature stream
from a body that will die.
Her corpse cannot resurrect
like a little glacial spring after snow melt
but can free itself as
a leaf of creamy paper on the wind.