Thursday, March 24, 2022

My Hero, Dave Smith

Matters of Life and Death
     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.