A Finger in the Sand

[Elphyon]

Written after a nice afternoon at a beach.



A finger in the sand is all I need
to spell out these nightborn words:

So fine a curtain divides my language
from your imaginings thickly speechless,
and we are quite lost, so very lost,
when we indeed with naked hearts converse.

Well,
Should I say it’s true?
Or cut off this
dry tongue with a polite meaningless word—
pull a Van Gogh on your sanctimony?

This juxtaposition of our voices
makes a jarring cacophony, is all;
this small and insignificant fracture
is just too wide for our mutual silence
to repair.

A paradox upon a paradox,
I’m aware how hollow my words must ring
in the vacuum between this page and that,
waywardly gone in your wide-shut pupils.

But waves will come and wet my sandy poem.
Words dissolving into million nothings,
like the ashes of time crumbling out of
a broken and bottomless hourglass—

Oh how these bygone mem’ries slip away,
and those precious hours along with them!
Gone are the footprints we have left behind
while we feelingly walked our way toward
the banks of Elysium, there to rest
for awhile what we mean and what we meant,
and in our hearts of hearts what we truly
felt.

So my friends, forget these words.
Give me a look and let us walk,
aye, hand in hand, we’ll talk once again.