Poetry
by
Andrew McCallum
a guid poem that
creepin lik a doat
owre the face o the sun
afore faain aff the margin
inti the void again
dichtung
It lies in the hand and in the tongue,
a way of making and of saying that is
not quite the same as those of other folk;
though whether it comes down through the blood
or is spread by contagion
no one now can tell,
so far we have come from its wellhead,
so murky the rivers up the streams of which
we seek against the currents to find
the homeswell of its rising.
A mode of being, a form of life,
at the same time
a declaration of independence and
a net we cast over the multitude of things
to catch their tumultuous silver
and bring them together to the shore.
This is the task of the fisherman,
the helmsman,
the poet:
to find a way of saying that may guide us home
yet leaves each to his own
At least the word can be our own breath.
There is a kind of freedom in this,
a kind of self-determination;
the name by which we call ourselves
is a less burdensome yoke to shoulder.
The wise poet
rids his palate of all common nouns,
and makes of his saying only
a revelation of the thing itself.