They were deep in the mine of souls
—no, I mean they’d gone far
into that shaft where inner and outer
grow indissoluble, dark against dark,
say beneath a bridge at night, where long attention
allows a sense of the breathing rippling;
they were practicing, heavy boots
above them, moving a little, above the grid
of a floor like those of stacked prison cells
—a brig, a Piranesian chamber, a cavern of men—
they were immersed in the night
when something warm—at first they knew not
what, they had no understanding, in the darkness—
another—sudden droplet—small rain—
Reader, I have no adequate term
for what blessed them, no word commensurate.
Then he conceived what he could:
a notion: if he remained in his body
(constrained within
the bond of a perimeter
simultaneously fixed and permeable,
if he were stayed, if he held fast—)
then he would break into flower.