Twenty-One Minutes in an Afternoon in June

Recollecting travels in the school of night,
Now that I’m an old creature of daylight,

I think a lot about what language means—
Not the meanings—what it means that it means.

I think it means I am only a host
Of meanings—and my body’s a wet ghost.

I’m aware a nestling’s dead or dying
In the trash bin where I placed it outside,

The nest-mate of the bird that died last night.
Lives just started are dying all the time.

I can just about stand knowing it’s true
For billions. I can’t bear just one or two.

(Was it Stalin cracked, “One death is tragic,
But a million deaths just a statistic”?)

Just this. Any hard meaning is a trace
From a larger world meanings couldn’t save.

So strong is my instinct to ferret out
The ghost of a meaning, soul from its house,

That I see eyes dark in every window
And never know, which are or aren’t my own.

How is it possible to write a book
About life, which is nothing like a book?