My own clichés ripple my pond like light:
I move between the fluctuations of silence
and sound, side-stepping direct questions
like an apostate over-hearing the flames
approach through the bearers’ darkness.
I feel a sense of safety here among the reeds
where I can watch the play of light on the lake
with less chance of being spotted by the heron
stalking her prey across the shallows nearby;
yet, this phrase, too, is but a mirage of my words.
And where, dearest reader, you ask, is the truth
beyond my dance between these drops of rain?
Where the honesty of a language which does not
hide behind the shimmering rain of these words?
(December 2012)
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