Poem Before it is Written

POEM BEFORE IT IS WRITTEN

Before this poem comes into being or rather
in real time just as it’s coming into being

it already exists though in no perceptible form
nor even knowable to us though many such

poems might already exist that are far more
epic or supple or full of perfect lines of

cypress trees leading to the fountain whose
rainbow colored spouts intertwine in a

braid that reaches up to heaven in whose
rhythms choirs out of normal earshot can be heard

and before the tips of spray reach the netherest
edges no voices were audible to us

and translating them into sound and meaning is the
poem’s duty like a needle hitting vinyl grooves or

lasers reading digital CD codes
out of the surrounding silences that

not only stretch in all Sahara-like directions from this point
but are intermixed in an echoing way with all the

various ribbons of physical sound possible to our
ears that organ God’s created specially to hear these

otherwise unreachable dimensions

and where in the uncreated mists it existed before
it doesn’t have deep resonant pulse until now

in our own ears or under our eyes or
blind fingertip’s recognitions

2/23/2007 (from Invention of the Wheel)

Categories: Poems