HELLEBORE

She says, The range of this tone will reach an apex, somewhere along the wall, which blocks its circle. The motion tends to the perpetual.

Or, she continues, a furthering of purpose. The day or night comes first? asks the sophist. Must we establish a noun, to couch a tendence. Parting the clouds of etymology, testing the boundary of a chambered sky.

Of stars and scars. World-animals, ensouled beings.

“Something like living

beside a mountain’s bald slope,

incapable of knowing

the proud pines and vernal pool

beyond the sight’s arc.”

And yes we have seen it, intractable, stoic. And the tender wildflowers that nest there, calling to the tips of fingers, “Caress me with hesitancy, a frail degree.”

And “the lake that was the valley” a form of only. It taints the sleep—pellicle, ripples—veining the dead

in the railroad graveyard, charnel ground,

corporeal speech, a seeking that leaves.