As If Now I Understand

Of all these meager losses, but as waves the moon provokes into a rage
Whose passion drives them upwards, and whose tiny violent fates
Drives them down into a froth whose dissipation seems to mimic
The acknowledgment of age

And how else to describe the awkward fundamental
Curiosity of wondering if the flame
we once called life could be lit again
But to note the earthen core, and the temporary permanence
Of sun, that seem a constant
While our bodies seem but sitting rooms we visit in

And "chris," you say, and then put our your hand
And as men do, then I take it, as if now I understand

How else to describe the differences in illness
That disfigure without killing,
but as cliffs against a wind off the pacific
Holding seeds of stronger flowers, or of acrobatic bushes
Or of crevice-buried grasses
With tenacious old savannah dreams to mimic

And "chris," you say, and then put our your hand
And as men do, then I take it, as if now I understand

How else to describe the body in this chair
And the notebook in this lap,
and the space-pen in this hand, attempting new refrains
But as specter in the costume of a fleshly aspiration
Chasing that which panic teases
Cooling blood into believing that the soul has yet retained

And "chris," you say, and then put our your hand
And as men do, then I take it, as if now I understand