Past words pirouette off the page,
like apparitions at their stations,
to reanimate an old thought
into a different mind’s age.
A pithy phrase or sensuous line
catches the ear in a whisper,
slows the thought to a clarion
even this reader might hear.
To know what happens, look
at what remained: the tattered book,
the cited scrap, one has saved
to write through the bookish dark.
What drives us to our age
resembles what drove us before:
to slip past the smoke and hate,
to sway in the dancer’s slightest gait.
(July 4, 2014)
subtext 