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—