Wherefore

At the Olson House
Cushing, Maine

 

Wherefore

 

To taste

as if something tasted for the first time

what we will have become then.

                                    Jane Hirshfield

                                    I Would Like

 

 

Where does it go after gathering after all that

lather has evaporated?  Imagine up-

stream the stallion-black havoc is that fast & has 

insisted his dawn call in the slip of wind listen it is 

this ripple beginning humbly nearly thoughtless or not

thoughtless but still without cause just because

 

not aimless but without aim it simply is its

lung & stomach & tongue.  It plunges or is

plunged & it is under & it bumps & lumbers

 

& something probably a lot  of somethings come un-

done (the night has been long but is finally dislodged)

unresisting bubble what slippery stuff is it

 

made of ? what? what rumble?  Thought:  we are long

past the beginning of it all; we are watching

not the cause but the unconscious falling

 

of water all winter solid we stretch the skin

on our cheeks receiving heat while the sun

somewhere begins a retreat to where we cannot see

 

or the water either, being called to be made

into a cloud or join the briefly caught in the crotch

of a fallen water-logged tree stalk

 

to pop there where all it is is all its insides 

that breaks wide to flit to the wind, into  to the breast

feather of the diving cormorant.  The lip

 

of the fish it just misses?