A man whose mind was more oaken than mine
once warned me against trying to find one sole answer
to any quagmire groping like a beggar for release
from the infinite fall of what it could be.
He spoke of the need to moderate and temper
the names you might choose to give
for what you find at the bottom of a question.
He said of such openness that it was akin to love.
It’s not the cynicism you miss in this place
nor the haggardness in the eyes of the cynics, the sewn
fabric that must come apart, asunder at the last,
the rent and tear of what’s so clearly riven here –
it’s more the sense of the large quashed heart you find
in this prison built by the prisoners without a prison’s need.