Have you said your sermon this morning? the road it travels is dustyand wide and goes round and round and round the mountain to say itis obvious is to say it is crowded with refugees you and the others onthe road no destination in sight you are alive though boring at timesand the smell of you is instant nausea you breathe white breath in theearly morning air indeed you may have a flair for going round andround with a skip and a jump at the most unexpected moments wasn’tthat you on a music box dancing in perfect porcelain? a quake threwyou from your shelf but round the mountain you must go suppose foronce you went up the mountain? would that be a different directionor just more tiring? would it disturb the order of the ten thousand often thousand things? do you care? do you know whose sermon this is?it’s a habit you’ll have for life although things do slow down fall intothemselves and leave the world to silence and to aha? gotcha? you’re itfor now but it won’t be long before another sucker comes this way andyou can hide under the desk with the rest of us : look : sky and sea arean undifferentiated gray even the birds disappear but forecast faith ina word and the osprey is there again hanging head-down in the windit’s plain that being unsure gives you your daily terror you even lift aprayer for it bells ring and you know it is the buoy off Saunders Reefthe red light assures you the buoy is still there that no Debussy bellshave come to dismantle your ears you’re safe in being where you are notthat you’ve got a warranty for life no matter what the salesman said yousigned up for Metaphysics 1 cost a bundle left you high and dry : howdare you take all hope away? well in the first place it crash-landed yearsago you’ve been standing there imagining greaves breastplate helmetwith plumes the whole she-bang but don’t weep today for what you didthen there’s a lot to learn about letting go and you won’t hear a clangof armor when you do in your most invincible day you were a larvaunderfoot you lived by chance shape-shifting you are a fortunate onewithout a shell no plane overhead gun to your head you are accidentallyfree in the full terror of being who you are but tell me now this onceand forever have you built your language out of the things you love?
from d e l e t e, Part 8
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