(Untitled)

What fills the space between us two,

what worlds thrown distant far apart,

that if I would speak straight with you

I need employ a crooked dart?

You hold a glass and speak so soft,

as if a light from far aloft.

The shine I see so oddly mixed,

as if a signal all unfixed.

If you would speak just as you are

and not insist on switching form

(could you be angel, beast, or worm?),

your light could be my guiding star.

What kind of strange conception,

only present in reflection?

Words of words of words of words,

and though we know just what they say,

if we knew how to mean them,

well, would we be here today?

What did you say, what did you mean,

what did you hear, why did you listen?

Did you just dream that flinty words

would set some spark to glisten?

(I must confess the better good

may be to go misunderstood.)

“Do you really mean that?”

I saw I snake gnawing on its tail.

It said, “God, I’m sick to my stomach!”

A lightbulb opens up a world

but dies a martyr in the end.

And how to trace the shining shatter

so close to tell it to a friend?

There is no stern revealer

like the quality of light,

and how to fend off nightmares

without a speaking and a sight?

How slips the space between us two,

how this drawing all together,

and why must we so change our view

with all the switches in the weather?

I walk through each dark valley deep

and marvel at the bleating sheep.

And all they struck me as so lost

until our shepherd paths came crossed.

But would you give me hope enough,

as shining through the weary years

you see me clipping with the shears…

and maybe other shepherd stuff?b

It’s bad luck to break a mirror,

although I do begin to fear her.