The word passes away
And I, I begin
To write; – not a word,
A word,
That’s what I lack, I know
Not a thing.
I write to find the word,
The word I lack
For the thing;
The thing that passes,
That fills my chest,
I mean: what pulls
And pushes; what stands
In me; I in my body,
My feet, I write nothing,
Nothing but what is gone,
Is fleeing; I mean,
I write to begin again,
To begin again to see; that means,
What is gone is what is coming,
Is what is already meaning to be; it was,
My calling. I saw the bird,
And I knew its meaning; the word,
The word is nothing,
Nothing but a moving, a pulling,
Something shoving,
A distance, a clearing, seen.
I in my body I know to sing
Not what I know but what is calling,
Pressing me; nothing but a song,
A passing meaning; that means,
I was the thing. I,
Alone, I, the poem.
Gray Haskins 