For Jay Hopler
The philosophers I really like believed in issues
they didn’t need to convert to; the isolation
of the thought, of the shattering thought,
lonelied them right into a fact that will tremble an excessive amount of
had been it carried from desk to window,
its outermost manifestations too loosened,
too far specified to appear a lot aside from frailty now.
And what I feel they feared,
or what I concern when tempted to inform you
of one thing I noticed, the way it moved in me this manner or that,
what reduction, what chiding want
for just a little sturdy peace this sight allowed, or that contact,
and of what, or with whom, is that such confiding
might draw down the paradox
that though it has no mass, mild does strike.
What we don’t say
is brilliant as metallic bells. And had been
my pal nonetheless alive, I’d need to make
a meal for him, one thing not all that expert, however not all
that horrible, lit with forefire and the lateness of the hour.
The large peony erupting its cranium from the middle
of the desk would collect in us an enormity
of conviction so thorough, we’d need to carry it elsewhere,
the chance of its full disheveling, its dropping open,
requiring us to withstand the second thought that wishes so badly
to comply with the primary, that conviction
itself pulls behind it a mender’s cart—, mustn’t it?
Higher simply to take a look at what the ludicrous
spring had executed, not saying a lot of it,
talking as an alternative of the rest, definitely least of all
attempting to survive it
by saying there will likely be extra—not now, however come subsequent spring.
This poem seems within the Might 2025 print version.
