For So Long Now
October 16, 2007
for so long now I have feared the cancer of silence,
the fall into the chasm of one’s own mind
and the absence of all distractions –
where there is no escaping the inward gaze
that finds oneself gazing out;
here is mindfulness of mindfulness;
here is the hand
that groping in darkness,
clenches and finds itself.
this has for some time been my most secret
and intimate fear –
for the hand that is there
is mauled and fingerless,
and the face that is there
is waxen with screaming
at the sound that it itself is making.
Winter, 1991
