Awake


The pinhole scope of how I acted earlier
standing in place resignedly, uncertain
as to whether feelings were being repressed
and the brightness that made me squint
was actually darker than I'd perceived.
I awake to find a window that I can do nothing
but look out of and see cars and trees
because this stillness can be disturbed
and that perambulation might end up
being misdirected. Let me speak without shutting
me down for the doubt that grabs my ankles
whenever I start to levitate. There is nobody
I can trust; none who seems so self-aware
that their views on fundamentals are
not grounded by hefty creations which they
themselves have designed out of fear and lack
or out of systems, once inspired, but since
not slightly reassessed, though the spaces
open for filling allow such strictly defined
forms inside that they are left standing
among heaps of jagged edged pieces
that would cut them if they tried to move
from where they stare with unwavering con-
centration into the lines of fingers and palms,
as close to their eyes as they can reach
before everything becomes a blur.
Pull out the superfluous like a plunderer
rummaging through a chest packed
with tortuously knotted cloth dyed in
mesmerizing colors for one small, raw
jewel to hold up as high as human arms
can reach so that the sky may kiss it –
a delighted godfather breathes warmly on
the bald pate of the newborn – then give it
away into possession of the eyes most
needful of its beauty and the deep
mineral glow of its absorption of light.
The difficulty is that low ideas hold
as much sway over the directions we turn
toward as the monumental ones which
cannot be brought back at will
when the stormy fog of illusion that
tomorrow's pace is ours to control appears;
because it is just then that it surfaces
as something monstrous and sphynx-like;
the domineering powers leading to fields
of danger so solitary, silent and obscured
no light in the distance signals
to come this way and no whispers
reassure that they are there.