| Against
Enlightenment
The Inuit have fifty words for snow and you think one
might
explain the complex web
of
any emotion, desire say, drenched in detail,
the
hum of tires, sky like gauze, Styrofoam
coffee cups & plastic bags windswept against the guardrails—
your
feelings, not the feel
of
a leather steering wheel or the centrifugal force
leaning
into this exit ramp
in search of anything to call a beginning, some
tabula
rasa moment, a longing
the
size of Amarillo lodged in—what?—One
word
will
never say it
any more than a tombstone's precious sentiments
will
speak a life. Let's say you could
trace
a feeling to its source, would you find the sudden
snap
of synapses like jazz
and call that yourself? or would suddenly keep happening?
an
accumulation of images
piling
up on an overhead projector leaving no way
to
distinguish them, no archaeological method
to uncover the truth, only thoughts & habits,
beer
& cigarettes to define us:
you
hop in the car, stopping here or there for a job,
a
marriage, a cup of coffee,
shedding these old Goodwill selves, wanting
only
the essential, one word, one phrase:
Rest
in Peace, say, or maybe a book, but there's always
one
more to read, one more essay
about how words won't work, one more story
in
search of the period
or
exclamation mark at the end.
You're
close now.
One more left hand turn, one more detail
by
the side of the road, but chances are,
you'll
be too busy steering to see it. Be truthful now:
it
is, given the circumstances,
the smart thing to do. |
