Excerpt from 'Track"

--Norman Finkelstein

       #

Listen to the children

who know their way about the forest

and return with stories

which the thief steals

exchanging them

for a kind of music.

        #

Listen to the music

which knows its way about the forest

and returns with stories

which the thief steals

obsessively

thinking they're allegories.

        #

Independent as any wife

or thief before his arrest

the stories in the forest

at home in the forest

wait there patiently

to be exchanged for music.

        ##

In some versions

there is a home among the trees

and in some versions

they live apart

so there are only the letters

In some versions they never meet at all.

        #

In some versions

there are many versions 

and in some versions only one

around which the commentators

weave endless versions

as if to explain.

        #

In these explanations

no single

cause or image

Eden calling

endless promise

endless disaster.