are so insignificant
Compared to Identity,
the all-seeing,
never-being eye.
The watching
makes film, cuts sheets,
Forms shards
in kaleidoscopic panoply
for fantasy
Of being on the earth
as something whole,
Meaningful,
instead of the ball
that jumps off the glove.
There is everything there,
in the silence, they say,
Even the blue tongues of sea
have something to say
beyond any "I"
Yet they are silent in all
the ways that count
To counting folk,
who know
no other way
Of honoring, remembering,
carrying a space
For the thought
of someone
else,
Who can seem so close
to one's core
To feel so far,
at home
in another's oblivion.
It's like a gift
from someone intact,
Who knows something,
recognized from
somewhere,
It is a person,
unlike me,
This small
archive of
humanity,
Some near-ideas
to recite,
Distant feelings to repeat,
charisma to extol
not knowing why,
Only that it makes me who I am,
which is almost something,
Almost what I never was
and never could
understand.