And you can never catch it
nor make it still
and so it is like thought in this
or weather
that you might live within it
or by its constraints
but never touch it—
and there is the sorrow
it will never know you
though you feel all winter
the shiver of how it never hesitates
in touching you.
Or, said another way :
it snowed all day and into the night.
The view developed
slowly like a photograph
in a bath of chemicals—
what began as white
grew whiter
by virtue of contrast
until it seemed overexposed
so little shadow was left
like a sentence revised too often.
What happens is the mind
travels outward
because it wants to be the soul it has heard tell of.
Nervous work
like a bird—sky and power line, garbage can, underbrush—
it goes to them;
it intends itself toward oily black seeds
toward reflections
in ice and in glass
and it goes to the wind
and is shut out
which is no one’s home.
Ever leave-taking,
action is its only description :
each shadow on the lamp-lit street
seeming to rush—molting out of itself—
each upward
to snow—
multitude of hurry, confusion—midair
to meet the idea that made it—
From Sight Map (University of California Press, 2009) by Brian Teare. Copyright © 2009 by Brian Teare. Used with the permission of the poet.