[NPM] today's poem

[angevin2]

Lines Composed on the Body Politic: An Accounting
Rita Dove

Elizabeth, the Lodge at Woodstock, 1554

Less than the charting of each dawn's resolutions,
less than each evening's trickle of doubt,
less than a crown's weight in silver, a diamond's
scratch against glass, less than the touted

ill luck of my rich beginnings-and yet
more than Eve's silence, my mute ingratitude.
More than music's safe passage, its rapturous net,
more than this stockpile of words, their liquid solicitude;

more desired than praise (the least-prized of my dreams),
less real than dreaming (castle keep for my sins),
more than no more, which seems
much less than hoped-for, again-

one mutiny, quelled; one wish lost, a forgotten treasure:
to live without scrutiny, beyond constant measure.