Canto
who planted the seed in the page that the flower
who sowed in the blank furrow the seed
that the flower’s green stem in black ink
[God’s calligraphy???]
draws up itself from nothing into nothing
and blooms
on each petal as on a flame
meditate
it burns white when burning light
(as the moon burns the night,
or once the moon did
as once the moon burned the night
and the night drew away)
[there is no depth, just a surface
to get lost in???] [& the absurd
nostalgia that my hand like a leaf could learn
to eat the sun???] then day, daylight
the corpse in the carefully tended plot
has sprouted into another thought
& when the flower blooms every petal is a flame
& a man sits inside the flames
& the thin stem holds the burden up
& the man is reading a book he is also writing
& the book is made of stone
& the man has a beard so long it touches the stone
and I’ve been looking for that man, wanting
to ask him a question I found
in me under the fluorescent buzz
of the archive where I met him
a page splayed
open in the library’s display
it’s hard to connect nothing with nothing
I’ve heard some rumors about the sun
