Paul Blackburn, in memoriam

Trying to keep up with the alphabet
but there are so many letters
running before me,
deer through the cornfield,
blackbirds over the roof
too quick to count,
your breath beside me.
Letters, letters all,
God’s cursive scribbled on the sky,

2.
and when we shake hands
does every finger consent
to this mild argument,
the book of peace
opened to the chapter called now?

3.
The letters,
not just the ancient
ox-house-camel procession
from Egypt into the Holy Land

but all of them, every mark
shouting from the stone,
long before the privilege of print.

The law runs this way:
once you learn to read,
everything is a book.
Once you learn language,
everything speaks.

4.
So learning a finite language
(Gaelic, Zulu, Thai) means learning
to leave things out, how
not to hear certain sounds,
means casting out meaning
from most of what you hear or see,
and narrow-squinting on some few.

5.
So every given language
is a subtraction from the whole
of what is being said?
Sounds like that. Means
run faster, ride the horses
of sounds, surf the waves of sight,
always more to be said.

6.
Are we there yet?
is what every breeze says,
Yes, yes cries every leaf
until it falls.

That’s the song I heard
written on the lawn.

7.
It began again
with the horns of Zeus
the god came riding
to your house, knocked
on your door, you watched
from the window.
And then what did we do?
He called out to us his law:
Death is not an option,
then Everything means
and then rode on. Leaving
all the rest of the letters,
uncountably many, all of them
needing to be spoken
alone and in concert,
all round us the music,
the ancient masters gesturing,
urging us to strive
into the dance, the whirlwind,
the breathless moment of calm
we yearn for and call meaning.

                                                       31 July 2020