Poetry Year September 20th

Poetics of elegance, and a dictionary of the history of ideas,
a compendium of all the influences and more,
that bear and weigh upon every word that you contemplate,
let alone set down upon the page, or publish in a book.
The craft escapes your hands and they are like flags flapping in the wind,
blow by mistal waves that howl down the sloped sides,
bearing the sand that grits our eyes and gears.
Bringing everything to a stop.

The sand that grits the ink, that grinds the keys,
yet is not made of any substance discerned by instrument.
It is the sand that covers every memory,
and drowns every empire in obscurity,
save those few whose prominences pierce the veil of history,
shattering up towards a sky they will never again do touch.

Fallen like, what, the leaves? The leaves of grass,
the leaves of books?
Or do I mean that which leaves us,
that sense of our direction,
when the shelf of influence is tossed to the floor,
and emptied out our pasts,
to be filled with volumes yet to pen.

We stop, we stumble, we stammer, we bend,
we begin, we break, we mold, we mend,
Seeking new beginning, in this the ever end.