Summary

In the first line, the speaker bids the reader to listen attentively as she states that thunder is just thunder. She goes on to say that a barking dog is "only a dog" (2). The reason that leaves fall from the trees every year is due to the tilt of the earth and distance from the sun causing the days to shorten. Falling leaves do not represent the inevitability of death.

Beginning in the sixth line, the speaker shares an anecdote told to her by her nephew's therapist. While playing, the boy "sank a toy ship and tried to save the captain" (8). The boy's therapist tells the family not "to read anything into that" (9). The speaker then questions who can read the world with its "paragraphs / of cloud and alphabets of dust" (10-11). In the final lines, the speaker hears a bird give a single...