How Many Authors

How many authors,

Unearthly meticulous,

Have left us symbols in scarves; or, say,

Surreptitiously submerged in salad dressing,

The idea of the priest confessing;

Clues folded carefully between innocuous lines,

So carefully that in ten thousand pairs of eyes,

Not one perceives the crease?

And what kind of beautiful sadist plants flowers in shadow?

I cannot bear the empty tears that they must shed,

The monstrous mute meaninglessness of these

Lessons taught, and not learned!

Worse: words, while wise,

Are not our only teachers.

So I look for the mirrors in smoke,

And in skies, in eyes,

In every word the wind spoke. 

Until everything is a mirror;

Everything, however dull, reflects.

When I tried to ride a bicycle today--

And not just because I want that idiom to be true,

But simply because I want to learn how--

When I put my heart to the pedal,

And the wind bent down to whisper,

Unintelligible, but clearly intelligent, 

Into my ear,

It felt like I had failed them;

I could not listen, but only hear.

On this generally generous June morning, 

The very last of the Daylilies bloomed.

I saw it later, in an evening hour,

And I imagined, as I rode past,

That it (or its reflection) asked

“Might I be, after all, only a flower?”

“To navigate by mirror alone

Is to walk always in reverse.”

So the lily seemed to say 

As it awaited, alone, its floral hearse.

I will not, without reason, 

Deny a dying wish.