Smallest Bells

"Come, let us risk our lives unnecessarily.

For if they have got any value at all

it is that they have got none."

~ Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

Let us empty our thin, old skins

(each of us for the other)

of the last few drops of water

onto the ground, to those gods

of older and lesser hells.

Let us be the widow's two coins

tumbling into temple coffers

(our last and only offering),

spending ourselves without question,

ringing like smallest bells.