Those Who Thoroughly Bed the Estuary

Those who thoroughly bed
the estuary
                know
the value of relation,
the inflection and formal
variation
             water knows
                   from air.
Clearly,
everything consists
in the determinate word,
the order of one, two, three;
no tricky exclusion concerns us—
not here, not ever.
       Can I say I am
          an island
where every moment submits
to an articulation
       of a banyan tree
       and Gaelic letter
       asleep
                on an ancient page?
These are canonical hours.
And this looks like the particle
syntax
          we have cudgeled into being.
At times like this,
you might hear the lyrical Khepera,
and see the frugal light
of another sun
          that articulates
                   the river.
It is too soon to say
      if blindness
is the innocent gift
                of strangers.

Copyright © 2004 Jay Wright All rights reserved
from Chelsea
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission