“…there are no names for those things amongst which one is completely alone.”
Paul Valéry
Still in the unbecoming. Though there be no exile. Bound in if. Whether tether or tender. Neither skin nor that nameless. Yearning wayward. Isolate prodigy of the unborn common to both.
Begin then. Ear-marked in the calm. And troubled by neither.
So tempted. Motionless. Simple arising. Of heart or error. Pale. Moonless and slender. Sight extant beyond the hollow. Toward the distant apparent.
That. Failing din or waste. The wane of bliss. To uncover. In any direction. As if to wander. In the stillness of a gaze. These. From the last breath and beyond.
Or otherwise. The route abandoned. Two. Sodden as the turf. The dense frailty of having been. Or neither. Or never. As any direction. Whether from or to. And neither glance. Nor holding held. This dark acceding to the light. From which ascension bears a third. Though not.
Witness. That. Blind. Or simply none. To bear denial. Engender opening. Simple opening upon.
Gentle accolade. Of conversion. Or merely that. The space of a closed window.
That. Stripped of reason. But what of purpose. Inoculant. Pallor of forgetting. Humble avowal. Or the eye’s ash. Tracing the ground. Into the whiteness. Beyond within. And remaining there. Lost. In want.
Reflection. Between two waters. The distance borne. Distinct. Or aloft. In the feather of forgetting. As if silent. Or as good as. Evidence of other winds. Other sighs. A rumour of having been. Perdure. Blue stone mistaken for sky.
That. Bastion. Upon which to wander. Weal of memory. Where the image. Obsequent. Unborn. Glass in the dark.
So opening. How enclose. Render there. Within reach of each pain. Each tired glance. Stifle what praise remains.
Grace in tatters. To await the wind. That would-be life. Inevitable.
Bereft of wonder. Another. On high. Or below. As upon knees. To capture silence. Or simply bereft. Whether words or heart. The skin of forgetting.
That. As if to touch. To graze other wounds. Subtle torments of denial. Stifled bliss. Fodder of a gaze.
Each question. To enter in. Find reproof. A quality of light. Or penury. Signify oblation. If not proffer. Etch in irrefutable shadow.
Tempted. Chiding. Whither such grace. Whence clarity. The gift of knowing. Ignorance alone. Unburden the image of silence. Stone of wonder.
This act. Rising. And prone. That dark to enter. Grace veiled in shadow and murmur. The splinters of time burying its secret.
That. Held. Whether by accident or other. What cannot be shared. Sorting through the fragments. Is there any other. Can such doubts be removed. As silence descends.
Hence the startle. Of a voice. Or merely the weight of remembrance. Unappeased. Moving among the shades. Becoming. To live with that fear. Accentuate fatality. Endure bestowal. Mute remnants. At the extreme.
Tallying the subtle risk. The ash. Striking the water. And the light. Undoing the body of time. The decaying throb. That lingering until. Within its obeisance. Nearly subtle. Or stark.
Loss of the sacred. In place of redemption. Inexorable. Scoria in the heart. Casting its own. Incomprehension. From any angle. Inconsolable shores amassed upon the stump of being.
Each word a sacrifice. Let return the thing. Or itself. Or any other. These hollows which so readily fit. As hope. The simple horror. Or delight. Of being. None would. As revelation.
Seeking the word. That which cannot be said. Nor unsaid. Or simply that.
Shelter these blind. Such as haunted so many days. Enduring. Or as revealed. That brief flash of life. Then back to crimson lay. Emerging of necessity only to be concealed.
So twined. Issue into the dark. Bearing the linger and glow
of knowing. Discern toward ignorance. These fractured extremes. Though not distant. Rent. From self or other.
Shelter here. The walls bare. Shadow and light. Various shades of white. Thought and what would be heart. Species of silence. The near impossibility. Where resides another.
Free of such space. Remote from either extreme. Delicate incoherence of the flesh. So prevalent. The conflicts of hunger. Or want. Cohabitation of satisfaction and discontent.
To share the trembling of the newly green. The quiver of sun or other light. That unknown. Unrevealed. The horizon. Within. Without.
And being. Or seeming. A tremor apparent. Faint. Ungraspable. Certain. The knowing presence. The solitude. Or simple isolation of a touch. Whither and whichever. Commons of absence.
Engender that. Amidst the melancholy and uncertainty of shelter. Such intimacy as this. Unspoken until. That too to stifle. As would any cry.
So. Word-blind. Resort to an image. Capture what escapes the word. That which is too quiet. Conveyed by the crude and thunder of gesture or trait.
Mute. Resound deafening. Overwhelming this quietude. Though reveal. And wallow. Stumbling within. How bear the unity of this calm. Yoke. Or smile.
That. Tether of light and silence. To make of these a bed. Cradle of solitude.
Where then. Whither turn. So often helpless in the face of. Or those which might have been. Prayers. Or the mere offering of a gift. Turn then.
The obvious difficulties. Of maintaining silence. Of saying and saying nothing. Of missaying. Daily misgivings. Finding the question. Not of reason but of wonder.
To shed not only being but becoming. The gentle caress which passes as life. The tired want withered in a gesture. Returning to itself. From which it never left. That unfelt. Yet.
Knowing this. And other whiteness. Reveling in the simplicity of oblivion. Or even that of memory. The moist hollows which pass as time. Ineffable and bound. As that duration which.
(Too many words lest silence be forgotten.)
1999
Note
Weal
1. a sound, healthy, or prosperous state of a person or thing; prosperity; happiness; welfare.
2. a raised, longitudinal wound, usually purple, on the surface of flesh caused by stroke of rod or whip; a welt.