“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and
listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still
and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it
has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”
        — Franz Kafka

Unless I write them down,
my thoughts go out like flames,
but the things I see endure.

They make an imprint, the way ice etches
the outline of a frozen leaf upon a frozen stone,
until leaf and stone are one.

The things I see arrive like ocean waves,
reaching backward and forward in time,
pass what I know, or can imagine.

I see my dead mother’s open mouth,
and my children’s solemn joy
when the night wind tells its story.

I see the blood-rose sunset,
the soaring opal moon, and my face,
reflected in my lover’s eyes.

Sometimes I’m afraid to get too close
to the things I see — but if I go blind
and have to live without them,

what solid steps will I descend
into the darkness,
or follow home, into the light?