Solitary Man

Solitude
is a word at once too long
and too short to describe
today:

too long
for the simplicity of
sitting and doing little
except existing;

too short
for the complexity of
sitting and doing little
except being.  Being:

the bird on the sill
at once aware and calm
ready to act or not
as needed;

being, the oneness
with the atmosphere
and the climate of
immediacy.

A man, alone,
demanding his manhood
be still and deny the need
for busyness.  Looks the same

as catatonia, perhaps
is the same in some
fashion — the totality
turning inward to face

the outside world, its wind,
its temperature and the noise
of dailiness.  All of it
a part of the man

solitary and contained,
proof against the stream
of things to hold gaze
upon the moment: the stream

stilled, the leaf holding fast
to the surface tension of the water,
the rocks and turbulence below
stopped in their path.

All that happening, and the only word
useful is at once inadequate and overactive
in the mouth — better, then,
to stay nothing and sit.