look there instead
look here, they say,
but no; i want to look there,
my focus firmly fixed upon things
not so crowd-gazed.
look there with me —
glistening, intricate mosaics
painstakingly crafted
in the arches of the museum stairwell,
unnoticed in the upward or downward rush
to view the expected.
People stop believing in permanence because permanence stopped believing in them.