late is the hour

Once, it seemed, I could say "swing" and it would mean "father."
At one time, sometime in my past, metaphor was the only language.
And a grand, sloppy language it was--sweeping over whole years
of my life. Drenching all memories in meaning.

To be sane, I have attempted to see meaning in less.
I mean, in fewer things.
Reserving meaning for the big moments--
the ones shaped as keys.

It is a more even way to proceed.
And I have come to dislike the tumblings,
the upheavals. At least, that mood takes
me less often.

But I still love, deeply love, always will love
the mind's ability to wander. Vastly,
and without apparent motivation, over the
topography of what is perceived. The
dramatic, meaning-making urge of human
thought, encapsulated in language, so
frail and imperfect.

The moments of the mind at its most distinctly human:
when contemplation of the word "fragile," for example,
becomes both sound and story.

I do not know if it is any more remarkable than
whatever way it is a horse thinks. Or a dog. Or a bird.

It only is, and it is the type of mind that I came into.
That I inhabit. And I do love those most fragile
and pointless turnings of consciousness.
They brought poetry into being and it is only
through them poetry can exist.

A very species-specific endeavor, poetry.
To me, this fact gives it no more weight
than the dog thinking "supper time,"
or "I'd like to go for a walk." All things are.
Yet I need the abstract, the unnecessary. An inherent
contradiction that is nonetheless true.

And that is just one way to be. Others are
like me, others are different. What I really need most
is the mystery, the contradictions. They please
the brain. They entertain and renew. Without them,
there is only stagnation. The mind grows self-satisfied,
weak. Moves in lazy loops.

May nothing ever
answer all the questions.