To be but not to be,
Not to live or die but
To be there as the sense
That it is to be there,
That you are you and there,
To sense and feel no need—
No want, no dread, no hurt.
Not to die in one’s sleep,
Not to die in a dream,
But to sleep in one’s death,
To sleep by chance, to dream.
Who would want to wake you?
We wait, your books of words,
Your shelf of hand-me-down
Tools. Carved souls who are not,
Can’t be, lives of our own.
We’re here to help. Tell us
What you want words to be.
We’re your best chance to sleep
Like a stone, like the moon,
Like a stream in the sun,
To sleep and yet to be,
To be, not just to dream,
To be that thing that sees.
Think of the years we’ll be
Or could be, might well be.
Think of that trace of you,
Ghost in some of the shapes
We take. That won’t be you.
We can’t be you, but we
Can keep a bit of you
And be. What could it be
We’d see? Look at these shapes
Cut in clay to say star
Or sky, reed-pressed, four times,
An, in a wheel. You see?
