the everything poem
it’s just like we thought, all of us, all along.
whether we admit to that dead cat or not, or the urge
and fear to dance, we knew from the beginning of knowing,
through the middle, wife, husband, or neither, we knew
right to the end.
we do as well understand the nature of lies;
no fooling any one or any thing. but that’s just the very nature
of everything. nothing omitted. not one single drop.
that’s the nature of nature.
and even what isn’t, is, as soon as it comes to mind,
like coming around the bend. surprise is a lovely pretense.
that was always the joke about the tree and the apple
and the snake from the first beginning of time!
potholes are implied,
and a gathering place, like gutter leaves, for idyl thoughts
to collide. genuine sparks make us laugh. just as much
as beauty will coalesce. and there, there’s the tree again.
and then you’re jostled or it’s time to eat or go to work
and there those understandings sit on the shelf, quietly
busy, evaporating into ghosts that whisper as they might,
still forget. like keys left in other pants.
neil reid © january 2011
[commentary] Here’s the first of four. Long transition, this calendar stuff. And I’ve been sick (distracted and distracting). But honestly, I’m just slow to finish near anything. Not much in common these four, except for the fingers they share. Yet still they feel like they are much from the same bowl.
It is something my habit to want descriptions with nothing left aside, thus here the blatant attempt, “the everything poem”. But then I read, and it’s just another swipe (meaning near miss at best). (and another secret definition of unspoken, love?)
