It's a bit like when you point at something
that you want a dog to notice, and the dog
just looks at your finger.
here in the U.K. they're knitting poems
to celebrate the centenary
of the Poetry Society
& shrews make little partings in the grass
before owls pounce & plummet upwards
to perch in the branches of dead elms
among forgotten constellations
I remember when we met in west Vienna
I had skate
you had the dark Russian sole
we talked about the inabilities of silence
to express immensity or domicile
the separate subclumps of the Virgo Cluster
the need to scratch at the skin
of some tambourine till blood peeps out
the motto of the mollusc: what is
human about humans may be logos
but life remains the slow construction of a home
in unspeakable tide & hunger
Norfolk September 2009