Observation

It is hard to look at things,

harder to say what you see.

Rattle each grain of sand

in its grave of desert?

Why begin unless you intend

to see things to the end?

And do not rely on the words

you overheard in a dream,

not knowing what they mean,

how they sound, those half-shadowed

chess pieces maneuvering

in and out of thought, unthought.

Language goes hard as time

at the first understanding.

Everything goes inside it,

which is an unopened box . . .

vague outline of a blue box

against a black background.

Then your voice’s children

as they escape to the street,

as they wade into the crowd . . .

the wind sucks them through a bone.

A plume of exhalation

withers on the zero air.

We know only one thing,

as a novel knows one story,

like a closed book reading

its own discrete emotions

pressed to paper word by

word, comma by comma.

It is not only duration

allows our mouths approaching

by halves to sometimes kiss.

A word is startled by the eye,

and something is unknown,

if still discrete, no longer.

Word

Sound and type are blurred

And the meaning is absurd.

Because it is only one word,

We can ignore it with impunity;

To do so might be no pity.

And yet, the only of its kind,

Without it language would be blind.

I cannot easily say it;

To try would betray it.

I don’t mean as in reveal,

But to render it less real.

It lies in its tomb,

A yellowed volume.

Unearthed, it will bloom.

May

Such trouble in the one word “may.”

An uncertainty, yet wishful; we pray

That tomorrow may be the day.

It is only vaguely referential

To the undone and potential.

It is, like a dangling piece of rope

To be climbed with fearless hope.

It is, behind a shapeless curtain,

The hidden seeker of the uncertain.

It is, the unanswerer of whys

And the unopener of the eyes.

May is only a suggestion,

A marker for the unknown question

We seldom pay attention to.

There may be so much else to do,

You hardly know that you are you.

One Word

There is one word that stands

Alone from all if’s and and’s,

Which has no face or hands,

Which, like a glistening bubble,

Floats above the verbal rubble,

Floats too high to be obscene,

Moving moveless and serene.

The word has never been spoken

Past teeth perfect or broken.

No tongue has been known to shape it,

Or fools’ babble to leak it or ape it.

Desperation, fear, or hatred’s keening

Can summon the word’s meaning,

But not the name of the word.

“There's no such thing! That’s absurd!”

Men cry — not quite saying the word.