How many authors,
Unearthly meticulous,
Have left us symbols in scarves; or, say,
Surreptitiously submerged in salad dressing,
The idea of the priest confessing;
Clues folded carefully between innocuous lines,
So carefully that in ten thousand pairs of eyes,
Not one perceives the crease?
And what kind of beautiful sadist plants flowers in shadow?
I cannot bear the empty tears that they must shed,
The monstrous mute meaninglessness of these
Lessons taught, and not learned!
Worse: words, while wise,
Are not our only teachers.
So I look for the mirrors in smoke,
And in skies, in eyes,
In every word the wind spoke.
Until everything is a mirror;
Everything, however dull, reflects.
When I tried to ride a bicycle today--
And not just because I want that idiom to be true,
But simply because I want to learn how--
When I put my heart to the pedal,
And the wind bent down to whisper,
Unintelligible, but clearly intelligent,
Into my ear,
It felt like I had failed them;
I could not listen, but only hear.
On this generally generous June morning,
The very last of the Daylilies bloomed.
I saw it later, in an evening hour,
And I imagined, as I rode past,
That it (or its reflection) asked
“Might I be, after all, only a flower?”
“To navigate by mirror alone
Is to walk always in reverse.”
So the lily seemed to say
As it awaited, alone, its floral hearse.
I will not, without reason,
Deny a dying wish.