Spoken at the Window

At the start of this
most recent eternity,
I looked into the evil
in your eyes
to promise I would not
let your hand fall from mine.

I got close enough
to see each fear
that scars your face
and to see myself
floating in your eye
like in a bath.
Into that depthless window
into the house of your soul,
I spoke these words:

"I cannot hear the distance
from where my words echo back.
They may roll here
returning from some long ago
life before man imagined suicides
and rebirths. They may be
here at my ear from
no farther than my teeth.
But, their words are clear.
Not of any language,
but carrying the meaning I have
always sought and fled. They say
I must resume from go
again building the road
by molding each pebble on the path
from atoms I must collect in dreams.
They say you will not help me,
because your job is merely
to make my work possible
rather than easier. They say,
they are not sorry and will laugh
at my eventual destruction and repetition.
They say they are not angels
because I would not want angels.
They are not devils or princes of wisdom.
They say they are merely
echoes of my fabulous ghosts."



by jerry gordon
3.24.10