a self

a self

answering
the wish the questions
those around you put
costing all your gathered
silence to answer
you stop like a
daylight scene worn
through with memory
shifted into the moon’s theater
becoming doubt
in its shadows.

you listen for your
own sound
the dark avenues
your waking takes you from
your dreaming under the
night’s timbers brings you
back to

you know
you can split the past
dry wood
splinters in the heart.

i have done it
split too my hand.

i make for myself a
sky

there are
books of stars to
lay out
waves to spin on a
blue morning
shore.

between
a place of rest.

beijing
1995

The music is from Beethoven’s ‘Grosse Fugue for string quartet in B flat major (“Grosse Fuge”), Op. 133, written in 1825, performed here by the Talich Quartet (recorded 1977)