Canto

Monday, July 15, 2019
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
Monday, July 15, 2019