70. Digressions towards Destinations

extract of dreamt

fragments of pieces
of ordinary considerations

what you found
where you had
originally lost it

the movement of
a word against
or across a
line can mean

thoughts expand in
the same way
that the body
breaks and buries
whatever it knew

delicate orchestrations of
the taught tongue
against the willing
ear as if
there was something
left to say

embryonic at first
then a growing
as if it
all could mean
whatever we needed
it to and
also relentlessly magisterial

ordinary you might
expect it to
be just a
word left on
a table in
a hand by
the bureau of
the one you

infractions you committed
against the marvelous
denying the possibility
that the word
could stay small
could resist that
urge to jump
into that cold
and blank wateriness

the clarity of
tongue as opposed
to the vagaries
of ear and
how the flight
of meaning means
it will crash
despite all the
good intentions of
a large vocabulary

to make every
necessary adjustment to
a life so
that it might
run right and
wander the world
of land or
thought in contravention
of the required
harm these boundaries
wreak upon us

in a moment
it might seem
that the world
is getting smaller
or looser or
that it is
lying flat across
the ground eyes
up at that
great black sky

the paper of
it and how
it works and
why a single
word upon it
gathers others around
it so that
there can be
something to say

you understand mass
the importance of
size the reason
why words must
multiply into pages
and books and
finally fill a
mind entirely up

take the smallest
examples of words
(“O, I, a
person in need
of something besides
a word”) and
make something up

bloodstream of your
body and work
what it carries
that you might
be only exactly
everything for giving

stare at the
current in the
ocean through the
river and believe
you see it

count it out
and you will
see that there
are three here

contrary to the
degree that it
can’t be forgotten

so much depended
on just that

likely not ever