Child. How old do you think I am?
Don’t answer. What can you know
of time, having tasted–-what, a drop?
What fills your mouth has enough
volume to fill the space of the cave
around your tongue. Hold it there
and pay attention.
Don’t talk to me about time’s layers
when an atom has flown like pollen
into your nose to stick like a note
at the back of your throat,
substance enough––
to make you sneeze it from yourself
like one or another abstract theory
about its essential substance
as though your words can do you
any good in your current state.
Taste, child. Try holding
what comes. Swallow.
Know nothing. Try again.
This is what we do.
They spit on our foreheads.
It does not mean to us
what the spitting kind want
it to mean, and so we carry on.
Wonderful! May we always keep our child like curiosity!
Amen, Alex. We need it : )