The Beginner
Doesn’t have a clue, sips whiskey in a train
station on the other side of thought, imagining
the space between the days, the votive cells
and atoms of each moment rising. Says yes
to everything that happens, fails egregiously
and says yes again. Believes in no birth, no death,
in the engine full of apples fermenting
among garlands of sunshine and farewell kisses,
believes the engine as greater vehicle of transcendence
has been corrupted. What is it? he asks.
But he forgets how answers are stitched together.
Feels the self-same swing of speech and silence
and fashions his own answer, the rookie inside
each of us, the newcomer squeezing a lemon wedge
into a glass of autumnal sighs. Regrets and
wrong turns, the body exposed to the golden wind.
How can this human life be anything other than
astonishing? The tick-tick-tick of pleasure’s ignition
quietly catching—after all these years, the one who
has just arrived knows exactly what to do.
