When was it that I first saw something shatter,
and learned, in that instant, so much about the world?
I must have seen the little webs of glittering glass
a hundred times before that, on the sidewalks and streets,
on the playground concrete, and supposed that they had been
deposited like dew, that they had coalesced
from the empty, rigid air. And then, something broke
before my eyes, and then everything was clear.
What a shock it must have been! What a surprise
to see that things end, that things are transformed
into other things . . . it seems so much
for a child to grasp. And what of water,
which looks like glass but does not shatter?
And what of air? And what of the soul?
Are we glass or are we water? And where
does the child go who wants this answered?
I went to a field of yellow grass and thistle
and sat alone for hours. The place
was alive with the ominous, omnivorous hum of insects,
and the waving, muttering blades of grass seemed to capture
the heat of the sun the way a puddle
of water will capture and hold one small corner
of sky’s panorama. In the distance, noises:
barking dogs, traffic, groaning lawn mowers.
I learned the beginnings and the ends of noises,
and how the silence that goes before
differs from the silence that comes after.
And I took this knowledge back to my home
where there was a different kind of silence:
the long pauses between my mother’s questions
and our responses; the careful, weary
evening reticence of my father;
the quiet neglect of books and small objects,
untouched, left alone to be what they were.
In my corner room I made notes, kept journals,
and charted a course of investigation
as, outside, the world passed by, a featureless
ocean, identical in all directions.
Originally Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 2.
