Some Things I Said

writings on the wall

I was the one who said
the ditch in the backyard was maybe a river
that had flowed from somewhere else and was flowing to
somewhere else

I was the one who said where are you now?

I was the one who told about the one whose photograph in
the book of Eakins’s photographs was of
a guy the perfection of his body was his doom, and
Shakespeare said so too

Right there before my eyes was the one who said
where are you now? Where
are you Anne? I was the one

Who saw how Aeneas lay there in the darkness watching the
light, the little motions of light moving around the ceiling
and telling him something

I was the one whose mother’s voice called out of the urn
beseeching

I was the one who said how the day light knocks at the lid in
vain

I said be keep to your self be close be wall all dark

I said good people are punished, like all the rest

I said the boats on the river are taking it easy

I said the brain in your head whispers

I said death lives in our words

I said how beautiful is the past, how few the implements,
and how carefully made

I was the one who said
her body witness is, so also is her voice

I said better not know too much too soon all about it

where rhymes with beware, I said

I said it is the body breathing,
the crib of knowing

I wish I could recall now the lines written across my dream is what
I said

I said the horse’s hooves know all about it, the sky’s statement of
oncoming darkness

The fumes on the roof are visible and drifting away like
martyred souls, I said

I said the knees of the committee touch each other under the
table, furtive in pleasure

I said
Eurydice, My Father

I said we huddle over the ice,
the two of us

To squeeze from a stone its juice is her art’s happiness is
what I said

I am the one who said,
I hum to myself myself in a humming dream

And how we’re caught, I said,
In language: in being, in feeling, in acting. I said, it’s
exacting

I said the sea upheld us, would not let us go nor drown us,
and we looked down say a million years, and there were the
fish

See, the dead bloom in the dark, I said

The nightjar feeds while flying softly, smiling, smiling, I said

I said revenant whitefaced Death is walking not knowing
whether

I said the formula on the blackboard said who are you

I said Utnapishtim said to Gilgamesh blink of an eye

I said where are you now Where are you Anne

Stanza my stone my father poet said

vwx stones and sticks

The day doesn’t know what day it is, I said

What’s in the way the sun shines down, I said

I cried in my mute heart,
What is my name and nature

493

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The Two Hermits by Kahlil Gibran

Upon a lonely mountain, there lived two hermits who worshipped God
and loved one another.

Now these two hermits had one earthen bowl, and this was their only
possession.

One day an evil spirit entered into the heart of the older hermit
and he came to the younger and said, “It is long that we have
lived together. The time has come for us to part. Let us divide
our possessions.”

Then the younger hermit was saddened and he said, “It grieves
me, Brother, that thou shouldst leave me. But if thou must needs
go, so be it,” and he brought the earthen bowl and gave it to him
saying, “We cannot divide it, Brother, let it be thine.”

Then the older hermit said, “Charity I will not accept. I will
take nothing but mine own. It must be divided.”

And the younger one said, “If the bowl be broken, of what use would
it be to thee or to me? If it be thy pleasure let us rather cast
a lot.”

But the older hermit said again, “I will have but justice and mine
own, and I will not trust justice and mine own to vain chance. The
bowl must be divided.”

Then the younger hermit could reason no further and he said, “If
it be indeed thy will, and if even so thou wouldst have it let us
now break the bowl.”

But the face of the older hermit grew exceedingly dark, and he
cried, “O thou cursed coward, thou wouldst not fight.”