SCRITTURA
A Sum Of Times
Sometimes it reported, when I was younger, in a fully formed dream once of the meaning of Eliot.
Deeply imprinted with his essence and existence, and everything and all that,
I saw the hollow man from the inside out. It changed in my hand like a flame.
Sometimes it was youth, said a writer with rancour, which I came to know by its hollow name.
I saw languages, suns, the pale widow of Christ, and the flame that laid bare what wasn’t there, that led the lamb to his death.
And the lamb lived and faltered and spoke in the language that flows through children; again, then again; and again, then, again.
I had visions then, but they’re hormones (said the scribe), and the formless regard shrank in my chest, and only the picture of blindness was left.
Sometimes it was love, the blindness, and shone, and in truth it never left me again.
But blinded, I forgot, on and on, and remembered until I forgot I’d forgotten.
But on and on, I approached the knowledge of gazing into nothing— but what?
Sometimes I remember, when I see what is there, the essence and existence, until it is not.
