If by succeeding you mean doing things right, 
and exactly, then it has no future. 
Ash blows from us madly and without cause. 
To keep things the same, where do you stop 
to worship and repair? It is natural to decline. I decline. 

The modicum of life that strung the little necks 
of crocuses, that lulled the feeble seed 
into its disease called grass, that heaped the pious 
branches with their only whiteness, 
that broke silver from the jawbone of moon, 

now walks me through the same lesson of snow 
until I am humble, until I am grateful, until birches 
lean far enough to undermine their spot, their root, 
until aftergrass turns to wheat and rope, and what can I do 
but walk over it, divine another origin, cast it off.