Jan Zwicky

              There is a sound

that is a whole of many parts,

a sorrowless transparency, like luck,

that opens in the centre of a thing.

An eye, a river, fishheads, death,

gold in your pocket, and a half-wit

son: the substance of the world

is light and blindness and the measure

of our wisdom is our love.

Our diligence: ten fingers and

a healthy set of lungs. Practise

ceaselessly: there is

one art: wind

in the open spaces

grieving, laughing

with us, saying

improvise.

You remember it as winter, but what you see

are leaf-shadows on the cupboard door,

black in the moonlight,

shifting a little in some breeze,

then still.

3:00 a.m., barefoot in the kitchen,

moon-shadows of the lilac on the cupboard door

gathered with you on the threshold.

You are only trying to say

what you see in the world. Spring.

Winter. Even knowing what you love

is no salvation. Their heart shapes,

trembling in the moonlight, sharp as frost.

When you look up, or out,

or in, your seeing is

a substance: stuff: a density

of some kind, like a pitch

that’s just outside the range

of hearing: numb

nudge of the real.

                I saw air

once, in its nothingness

so clear it was a voice

almost, a kind of joy. I thought

of water – breath as drinking –

and the way it shows us

light. Or maybe it was light

I thought of – as though

water were the solid form

of wind, and air

a language with a single word

transparent to the world.

Your glance is this,

meltwater, mountain light.

The plunge and thunder of the pool.

The ripple at its farthest edge.