Get out of talk,
Or you’re still in
Town, who cares where
You sit to talk.
Han Shan might have
Been a myth, ruse
Dreamed by a monk
Who wrote those poems
And claimed to find
Them on trees, rocks,
Scraps in the breeze
Left by the crazed
Sage from the cold
Cave on the cliff.
But if so, still,
Ruse spared monk talk.
Here is a rock, a quant, an Earth.
It popped out of a field of stars
By chance or since it had no choice
Since a speck on it looked at it.
The specks on it are fields of bugs,
Of germs, of souls, of ghosts, of names.
They dance. We dance. You dance. The rock
Spins and spins, and the specks take turns.
First came the specks that had no plans,
And then the specks that burned the air,
The specks that ate the air, that belched
More air, that ate the specks made air—
The dance and all its turns and spins
Has spun too long to list them all.
Let’s cut to the chase—the best part
Of the crust of specks on the rock,
We like to think, are now the names,
Terms, counts, sums, rules, maths, games. More ghosts,
Sure, and the first ghosts not just specks
As well. But the rock has not grown.
The field of stars goes on with stars,
Pops, blooms, holes, arms, dark, bursts. The whole
Is the whole and the rock is part,
And the specks on the rock eat specks.
How will the names get off the rock?
Will the names find specks on far moons?
Will the names end the reign of specks
On specks on Earth’s rock fields? Stay tuned.
Names can take a thing
That’s just a bit less,
The way shade is less
Light—a patch in more
Cut by what blocks light,
Not dark, not no-light,
Just less light in more,
Which is why it fades
And goes when dark falls—
And make it a thing
All its own, as if
Shade were a drop cloth,
A piece of the dark,
The soul of a beast,
A beast of its own.
Names make names of shade,
What names are as signs,
The less light, not dark,
All they stand for, thrown,
Pi, ni, phi, each piece,
Like a soul, brought low.
It’s in bad math shape—
You can see the edge;
You can’t prove it’s there.
It’s all the same field.
It’s all the same dance,
But the parts all change.
Pure traits of a shape
Add up when it moves,
But the whole field moves,
And all the shapes bend
And the field bends too,
But who bows and when?
A sharp list of traits
That held for all fields,
That held for all moves,
Would be nice, would do.
But you need the space,
And all space won’t do.