A Dark Mathematical Forest

Advice for other utterly unknown poets—
Absurdly inconsistent as this is,
This is not a matter of injustice. Yes,

Most award-winning poetry is mediocre
And inconsequential, and much of it is
Actually awful. Odds are, so is yours.

Odds are, a few of you are better than that,
Are better than them. You may be a node
Around which better poetry forms than around

Any of the rest of us, and you may vanish
With it, nonetheless. It’s an odd universe,
And poems are not exempt. The best,

Most wonderful poetry ever composed
Or ever to be composed, odds are, has been
Already lost to us and was never known.

We pull our phrases together from the torn
Scraps we plucked from local dumps and out
Of the ruins. Most of us can’t cord thread

From scratch, much less weave whole cloth.
It’s cold, but it’s probably true. We live and move
As refugees in a dark mathematical forest,

And what we can do to preserve ourselves
In innumerable numerical shadows we do.
Divinations. Incantations. Prayers. Intimate

Confessions, frantic expostulations, hymns,
Cursing, magic signs to ward off evil eyes,
Protestations of all kinds. Odds are still,

The forest of this possible world will consume
Us soon and everything we’re pleased to write,
Alive, dying like everything in these woods

Dies, that is to say, yes, while still alive.
Okay. Take a deep breath. The shadows today
May seem longer than yesterday, but no,

They’re the same. Odds are, they won’t change
Much in the ways they change, not while
We’re here to say, although they always

Change. Does composing a poem, a poem
Of whatever kind, whatever dim reception,
Whatever value to others ease your mind?

That’s fine. This is fine. Personally, I like
The way the moonlight looks through long
Odds at night. I like the wreckage of words

Such as “sylvan” and “bosky” and “umber”
On a long, hot afternoon in the shade
Where I am, you know, myself, only data,

A stippled, sunlit pattern on the dark moss
Of an actuarial grave I might yet evade.
We say what we have to say.