Perfect Answer

We heard about the incident where this college student, for his final Philosophy paper, was asked to answer the question: Why? After much deliberation, he put down, only, “Because.” and received a perfect grade That made us all slow down a little. I pitted the answer against everything: The freshly clipped grass around one soldier’s grave, Mandelbrot’s fractals, A sycamore tree forming new buds, while on one aloof point, hung a single, shriveled leaf that never fell. I stood it up carefully to face the ghostly moon, then realized that the lonely wraith was me, stalking reasons in the silver light The Truth: unfathomable, and yet there are clues everywhere Perhaps it is right inside my body, inundated like those birds who turn on the first bitter day, wings acquiescing to a token cadence: Be—cause Be—cause