Sometimes I love the night and its endless emancipation from thought,
curlicues of dream entwined with the door to memory’s love and fear.
There are the sinuous moves of the beloved’s body from far-off times,
and dread she will leave as she always has, to find a life to learn from.
Before such infatuation with past and future, I loved mostly the days.
When I loved I left nothing in the bottomless well of life to draw from
knowing part way yields nothing finally and only all the way suffices.
If the bones know more than the flesh because they are covered over,
a body moves with its writs of gratitude once death is bypassed again.
How could I ever say I learned nothing with the showers of knowledge
littering the field like lightning bolts waiting to be gathered and stored
in these frail words whose romance leaves its Wittgenstein far behind!
(24 August 2011)
copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander
Gorgeous, Floyce-- memorable and beautiful lines-- an exquisitely crafted reflection-- I especially love these lines:
ReplyDeleteIf the bones know more than the flesh because they are covered over,
a body moves with its writs of gratitude once death is bypassed again.
xxj