In the Gloom of Hard and White

To carve the tongue at the joints,
As Cook Ding knew, a sharp blade
Must not hack but glide its way,
And in that way it stays sharp.

Some will choose to skip the tongue
And carve the heart. But the blade
Whose edge comes down to thin air
Is the tongue that carves the heart

Or the heart that carves the tongue
So that it cleaves to the roof
Of the world that killed the beast.
Poems are all tongue and all heart,

But where is your Cook Ding now?
All our knives are stained and dulled,
Our floor’s a wet mess of gore,
And who knows what cleaves what now?