Five Charms in Praise of Bewilderment
1
At first when you leave town,
the dog and I maintain dignified silence.
After no more than two hours
I’m talking to her, after three
she’s telling me the story of her life.
I nod my head at every word,
encouraging her
to take all the time she needs
2
I have the vice
of courting poems.
Pathetic, I know.
I also like to watch Oprah
if no one is around to notice.
That’s right,
I court poems, I watch Oprah,
I even let out wordless sighs late at night,
and call them
my spring fields ploughed, my ready earth.
3
Sitting quietly at dusk, I'll admit
my life goes like this:
dark branches
scratching the still darker window.
4
“How are you?”
I ask a woman at work.
“I have no idea,”
she replies,
sounding pleased with herself
at the heartfeltness
of her own bewilderment.
5
We don’t know,
can’t possibly know,
never have known,
never will know.
We just don’t know.
Copyright © 2014 Jim Moore. This poem originally appeared in Underground: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 2014). Used with permission of the author.