for jamie parsley
moon--
I have pulled
opened and split
the grass
at the binding.
It becomes
at the binding.
It becomes
a curled tongue,
a compressed
nautilus,
nautilus,
a hive
of the sea
unending.
And
words, saturated
with earth
rise
like decanted
air, a mild
grief
between what blade
I’ve pulled
what blades
remain.
It takes time, adjusting
to that dark.
To see.
It takes time, adjusting
to that dark.
To see.
My strong left
eye and my nearly blind
right argue
all the time. Impatient,
the left has had
a lifetime of taking
over, the right
a lump in a wash
of amber blur.
I think I dream
though
though
with my right eye.
Maybe day
light is too bright.
Maybe the grass
I’ve opened
isn’t for reading
but for dreaming,
for sensing
the root, for escorting
out
and
up
out
and
up
and then
patting down the dark,
patting down the dark,
to smooth it over.
And finally,
When the words
When the words
are laid out
on the top
on the top
of a long gone bottom, it’s
my right eye
that catches the pinch
first. Because
in such dark
in such dark
it's what's left
that's at rest.
that's at rest.
And listen:
the right has been waiting
the right has been waiting
in all this learned
quiet. It is
a monk’s robe opening
and with ocular
reserve,
stepping up
the Everest blade
without
anyone seeing that foot
lift at all,
or the one
clump of snow
fall, and slightly,