The Channel

Pulled at from all sides.


We've seen the colors of infinity,
Dancing in a tunnel-vision suddenly corrected,
Brazen defiances of form and causation.
How then are we to watch them congeal and
Fill out the frame of a chair, a music stand, a coffee table?
Where is the stillness, where is the sculpture?
Where is the settling Sphinx turned already to stone?
How are we to accept life called out of the shifting
And made suddenly absolute?
How do we dare to embrace this silhouette-personhood
And call it ours?
This existence is heavy,
Too heavy to hold.

These words will taste to you like silence,
Words that left us charged with sound and cadence
Will fall on you like stillness, condensation on the wine glass of eternity.
There is nothing I can do but set a hand, aggravate a string,
Pull the colors straight through -
Then you will understand.

We fall asleep and dream of a channel,
Perfectly crafted, leading the water in a rush from sea to sea,
Coaxing it from fullness to fullness,
Meandering repose to meandering repose,
But only through the channel of aggravated urgency,
Through a year and a half injected with the fury of hope
And feverish aspiration.
The current runs anxiously
And relaxes into the expansive sea.

We awake.
We search the coastline.
But the channel is gone.