I don't know if I should be
Ceaselessly hopeful
That I am understood
Or ecstatic
That I can finally understand you.
You, without me, outside me,
Much larger than life, and me,
Before me, far from me, unlike me,
Are magnificent,
Sweaty sweet,
Systematic and
Symptomatic,
Making a difference to the universe.
While I sit here,
Waiting for the world
To make a difference to me,
Making excuses that everything I'm thinking
Has been thought already.
*
This is an account of my reflections on first looking into Mikhail Bakhtin.