For the Length

For Jay Hopler

The philosophers I really like believed in issues
they didn’t wish to convert to; the isolation
of the thought, of the shattering thought,
lonelied them right into a fact that may tremble an excessive amount of
had been it carried from desk to window,
its outermost manifestations too loosened,
too far specified to appear a lot apart from frailty now.
And what I feel they feared,
or what I worry when tempted to let you know
of one thing I noticed, the way it moved in me this fashion or that,
what aid, what chiding want
for slightly sturdy peace this sight allowed, or that contact,
and of what, or with whom, is that such confiding
might draw down the paradox
that though it has no mass, gentle does strike.
What we don’t say
is brilliant as steel bells. And had been
my pal nonetheless alive, I’d wish to make
a meal for him, one thing not all that expert, however not all
that horrible, lit with forefire and the lateness of the hour.
The large peony erupting its cranium from the middle
of the desk would collect in us an enormity
of conviction so thorough, we’d wish to carry it elsewhere,
the danger of its full disheveling, its dropping open,
requiring us to withstand the second thought that desires so badly
to observe the primary, that conviction
itself pulls behind it a mender’s cart—, mustn’t it?

             Higher simply to take a look at what the ludicrous
spring had carried out, not saying a lot of it,
talking as a substitute of anything, actually least of all
attempting to survive it
by saying there shall be extra—not now, however come subsequent spring.

This poem seems within the Could 2025 print version.