Released from the bud’s tiny fist,
Crab petals vaguely exist.
It’s not in them to resist
Their bleaching by the sun
Or the wind that makes them run
In waves along the ground.
After rain, they can be found,
Spinning pink clusters,
In swiftly emptying gutters.
The last, like a dim pulse, flutter.
I turn away from this —
The moment I won’t miss —
Bowed beneath the aegis
Of the blood's next beat,
Which will never repeat.
Every blink is a defeat.
Mind can’t make up its mind,
Nor the wind-up clock wind,
Nor the found object find.
All comes back on its selves,
Books returned to bookshelves.
As no star eternally burns,
We find all we will learn —
We’re just one eternal return.
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.
I found the image in the attic,
In the half-light blurred, static,
Like a votive, intensely vatic.
In a shadow box, five white stones
All shaped like finger bones
Arranged in a question mark,
A gesture beckoning a dark
Something beyond conceiving
Into the emptiness of believing.
I took it and nailed it to a wall
Downstairs, only to watch it fall,
Its glass crack, the stones scatter.
I think they no longer matter,
But I’m wrong. I see them still,
Years later. They won’t, and will.
They're like ghosts no ghost can kill.
To the echo the mirror said,
“You repeat until you are dead,
While I’m an eternal ‘instead,’
Light’s reversal that cannot fade.”
The echo replied, “fade, fai, daid.”
Night fell — only light was afraid.
For Lucien Stryk
A strange word — an our
And a silent H that lours
Over us, a hidden power
Giving us us and taking
Us away — asleep — awakening.
