As the napkin is opened, the folds
Seem like something else
As the Peloponnesian War
Seems like something else:
A glimmer of a common inheritance
As common as something can be at least
Locked inside a private scrutiny.
II.
The invisible shapes itself
Around everything we see
—The feeling is of poetry
Wordless, without form,
It lies within us, hungering,
To connect what is
To what we see
Layered in like a veil,
We lose it in the literal;
It is either not it or exact,
Shareable as crystal
Or non-existent.
III.
A shade of blue
Is so much more than a color,
It seems impenetrable,
Like the universe
Or the ways of man,
But it is me,
With it within,
That can’t be breached,
I’m responsible
For what is endless,
Unredeemable
Even as my own
Endlessness
Is nothing more
Than a persistent rumor
And my redeemability
More and more seems
To take the form
Of that blue.
