Honestly    with regards to the creatures of the valley
I feel ashamed        can't look them in the eye
inside which is violet fog  (pulled along, rustling)
and kindness, placed into the eternal interrogation that is
cowardice.  When the twilight follows me back to the stone house
they emerge          from their many secret places
create me    and wait for this wrinkled, moist,
tree-barked         man to be supplanted by a steadier messenger.
Even if I hide myself in books, which open to me conveniently
I know     they'll still peek out from the white spaces in words
watch me    and mutter about the humiliations they'll suffer, the dirt.        
Yeah          when my teeth loosen and drop out one by one from age
I will still remember all of this         steadfastly
and with my soul I'll answer the endless accumulation of innocence        
those leaves       just like the skin of babies, blue-green, translucent