How To Scar Water
How to scar water is a question best offered,
Out of time. It is beyond any scarring, any honor,
Any death. It is the all-seeing eye of God.
Boundless even within its boundaries’ facade.
But we scar and die because we’re an irreversible
Open letter, written with an indelible pen―double
Filling and emptying its ink in small and inconsequential
Amounts―unchanging in its constant changing tremble―
Days and their ends shove our clattering feet home.
In the end, whichever road you may lead or roam,
It lifts into a precipice, and it drops into a plunge.
It begs, ‘Jump!’ If you don’t take the plunge judge;
The ever eavesdropping silence waits to receive
Whatever glottal rhythm of a mother tongue heaved,
To offer a regret or two or more in their supply;
Sometimes shadows drop in at the corner of your eye,
One way tears falling plump―ghosts of shadows.
No amount of yesterdays’ smile fill the void below,
The cul-de-sac offers again, ‘Jump!’ Lacking,
Its offerings are intangible, high on abstractions:
To write the poetry of your life is a hell of a drug.
You leap, whir, and land back on the precipice above;
This time, like water, faced the other way―wise
With so much road to take, to color over the lines.
