Undated — a message floats in midair
like an idea whose time had or has not come.
It waits to be posted, or it will be read afterward
as if it did not matter, not at all to anyone.

No stream took it, no brook known or not.
The writer looks at it, scratches his head.
He does not recall it. He doesn’t remember
writing it. It is unrelated to his poetry — he thinks.

He thinks long about how long he has waited for something
to touch one of these poems and now he finds
nothing could have come close to them with no notice.
Obvious now, and he still has no idea who wrote this.

So much is like this now –islands
in a crystal ocean too deep to measure. He tries
to connect them and there is no bridge or ferry
between them. They’re just there — or they aren’t;

undated messages that seem connected but aren’t,
land masses not growing or shrinking: just present.
He puts his head down to weep or sleep. No matter.
He doesn’t know what he meant to say. No matter.

No problem. He’s getting used
to this view of the islands.
He’s getting used to not knowing
everything he meant to say.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T