semiotics

Always there is the lie of every letter. Always there is the danger of the restless dust. The face framed upon the wall, the face staring daggers from inside the mirror. The story written over and over, the song going on and on. That hint I am troubled by so much telling and so little to say. The relative positions of tree, bird, and sun. Footpads and fingerprints. The inherent inadequacy of the softest sell.

There are always armchair quarterbacks. The chosen and the driven, then the broad deluge. Rock stars and session players, then the rest of us picking up. After awhile, you have to take your eyes off the map and recognize the road you're on. After awhile, you have to recognize what the world already knows. The ache and the labor. The worry and the love. The scratchy crawl of insistent ink, each smudge and crease of the vast decline. The workers and the dreamers, the watchers in the wings. At some point, everyone already knows.

I watch the wind move the high leaves. I watch the smpke coil off into lit particulars and poems. Three crows cross the sky, holy and irreverent. Dogs and cats loll, scattered about the thirsty yard. It isn't the story, it's the scene. It isn't the word, it's the way. Finches flit and fuss above me. Life goes on and on. I watch as oceans of ash dance in the dwindling light. The hungry wind and the dying pines, the pictures painted on the empty hallways of the mind. The urgent mystery, the muffled secrets, the hours that scrape and crawl. This vacant claim, this endless kiss.