I try to read a friend’s work
but it’s too hard. The majesty
and flavor of the poem is too much
to tackle. I long to cross the bridge
between the islands of verse,
to connect through a path between
sandy hillocks and the rising sea.
Make it make sense, I whisper
to each island before I stumble
toward it over the cartoon-colored water;
it never works and instead I find myself
in tears, in wails before it — from murmuring
to screams and back again. I am left
with the tottering of meaning on a fulcrum;
trying one more time to balance
long enough to calculate what is being said,
what should be inferred, what is left behind
in the level of the rising threat from the ocean.
I fail, again and again. Having choices
such as this — surrender and let it go
or try to tangle my fingers deeper in
hair and clothing of the work…I sigh,
then bend to it. Bending low to the struggle
though I may lose. I tangle up, tear up.
I go.

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