this season we open and close shutters
release bars of light interspersed
with sudden silent shadow
across mute indeterminate landscape

day disappears into a hidden slot
like a venetian roller desk opens
to reveal the time of language—
words, lamps, exile and nativity—
these symbols float like shadows
on newly mummified time

suddenly, what we ignored
confronts us, the strong is straw 

an open shutter records it
in an instant artifice of light
now is the time to ponder glass,
lenses, daguerreotypes,
hieroglyphs, and encrypted codes, all
that we surround ourselves with

we have been forced, back against the wall
we built, to know the heart of stone,
father of wood, seminalism of fire,
a time to rediscover what we already knew
that which we so casually abandoned
in some hut or shed

Advertisement