for David
At dawn, contemplating the dishes,
A dialogue in my head:
Why would you do that?
Because that's what a life is:
The things you do.
Always with me the questioning:
Why would you do that? Wisdom is
Orthogonal to intelligence
And will not grow in ground
Salted by certainty.
Poetry is not a mode of writing,
It is a mode of being:
Each moment stretched
To its natural catenary,
Unburdened
By the harried exigent,
By worthy distress.
A poem is that moment
Of flathead grey mullet
Clearing the sea
In a startling arc of life beyond life,
Being not word, but breath.