To Spend Too Much Time in Them Is Slouth. . . . For They Teach Not Their Own Use

There is just the one true thing.
The rest are the things we use
To not think on that one truth.

If we had not set out truth
As a named thing we could know,
We would not have learned the truth.

We say we. We mean all those
Who lived so long since, we have
Just a few names left of them.

Like truth. Truth and its shade, doubt.
We know them both, both at once.
That’s how they came. Truth and doubt.

Bù Yì

I spot a bright green fly
On the fence in the sun.

I am a bright green fly
Wings out, wide to the sun

In a sharp dawn in fall,
When it’s too cold for flies.

The sun is low and slow
To warm my bright green back.

What are whole days to flies?
Time to find food. Go on.

Don’t sit in sun too long.
You might start to think you

Can make up your own mind.
You’re just here to shed some

Waste heat earth got from sun.
You’re a bit of code, built

By the break down, to break
Down more and more, fly. Run.

To Fix the Black Dye

It came from the verb to bite

And, in two forms, it held on—

In one, it is a sharp form

Of wit, a sense, and in one

It is some goop used to bind

A stain, gold leaf, or etched lines.

To bite, nip, sting, to cause pain,

To cause harm, which, in this tongue

Might have come from an old root

That meant to rub out. This thing,

A word we bite in our mouths,

A word once used on black lace,

This shade, this stain on the tongue,

It tells us we know we’re prey.