Exercise 3
When a man averts his will and sets to
praise the notes of forests, almost nourished
by embrace and sight of pine and water–
what to call it but an alter’s “passion”?
When a woman finds a foreign feeling
and her words have nothing to contest
it, calling forward to debase her on
an altar of the Other subjugated–
only then the poets and professors
find a secret diction for distaste.
Something speaks to partners underneath us;
and our hearts repeat the words, if not to die.
Something greater wants, through hands and minds,
and still, we play our parts above, in flesh
a foul writing that confounds the author
still convinced he is his only master.
When I must submit to greater rapture,
could I hint at who belongs my captor?
If the writing recognises backward,
to the Hand of All Creations, could it
learn to love its moments of control?
The banns of marriage feel like spells to me;
the mind can find no reason to object.
Her hands, so warm, can stop my thoughts outright,
and I am blind and dumb, become a puppet.
I have no reason for this weakness, save
a small inscription in the depths beneath,
a poem, seven hundred thousand years.