Meaning comes at you
snowplow at dawn
roaring the road clear
meaning has at you
in the old ways, swordplay
of contrary ideas.

2.
So soliferous, the woman
bearing the sun,
open the blinds, roll
away the stone. Morning
is the first idea–
now what to do
with all you dreamt,
wordless images of
parts of bodies, parts of trees,
o blessed blank white wall.

3.
You have to take
all the things you thought
or thought you saw
and fill your arms with them
and drop them in the well.
The water of will never fail.

4.
Why is he mail?
All questions and no answers.
Spread them on the table,
on the screen. Analyze the obvious.
Sweep them together, turn
off the device. No meaning
in what we say to each other,
the meaning waits, lurks,
deep in the body of the sayer.
Come towards me now! you
cry to the empty air.

5.
The next part of meaning is a stone.
You pick it up and hit with
or build a wall.
You decide. If wall,
you’ll need a roof on it.
If hit, you’ll need to run away.
This is your education.
I want to say History
is pebbles on the shore
of an unknown ocean—
can I get away with that?

6.
There are consolations, though,
for meaning. Words
flutter from my lips,
paintings from your fingertips,
et cetera. I feel like Byron in a bassinet,
not quite sure what I mean.
Morning is such a pretty child,
round eyes briefly wide.

7.
These are tales
the snowplow told,
curves and mounds
and sudden falls,

Kipling now I climb
your hills again
Darjeeling, garden
of the thunderbolt, dorje ling
tool in a strong hand.

8.
On days like these
colors get lost—
that’s what meaning means.
You woke with low green hills
like Neolithic mounds
left by only God knows who.
Yet each hill is still alive, green
I wonder where winter went.

9.
And then the kettle
as they say sings,
and morning has its clothing on
and we have to be ready,
ready, ready. Everything
is on its way all over again–
you know that song,
fierce chorus that ends
your favorite opera The Night.

23 February 2021