56. The Little Bit of It That We Remember from the Day before We Knew

It is what in Ithaca you find it to be
like a life, like a light
what word you might allow yourself
in place of the word for arrow

or is it error?

maybe errand

what a life is

we think at the outset
that we might think at the outset
a life we might live might have
purpose, direction, the

chish-cha

into bull’s-eye

through air and wind
through fingers of your hand
by pressure of bowstring
into

—yet we fail

world of falling
the breaking upon impact
what the little egg of skull does
when the wrack and rock comes up so fast
so it

and the split
open

what leaves and never returns

we know the dead
we know them well
too well

they are those who never leave our side

but life is errand
what we do
how we do it
and when

if we make the deadline
of a life
a sour, sweet, bitter, lost and lonely,
a lovely, surprising, misdirected, tenuous and permanent
life

then we have
a nick
a tick
a mark
upon the place

(bedpost
black book
sock drawer
arm or wrist

acrost the wrist
in red
like blood)

marking that thing done

What we might think of it

in the darkness

in the deep gorges

(almost beautiful)

with the water running

away
and down

where we might fall

broken of bone
smashed of head

into darkness

but the water runs like
air like light like
breath

and it could be
death

or it could be
life

that pursues you
through

the world
the darkness
the cut
in the black earth

where the light can’t find it

We live in Cephallonia
world of the head

cogitating all the time
something moves something else
(a thought)
forward

we cannot go home yet
because we are wandering

the earth

in search of revenge
for some offense
we cannot define

against some people
we do not know

and we cannot go home

until we’re done with knowing it.