The Imbecile

I
He is not the wise man, who comes
round to it only the long way.
He has not yet crept out of his mind,
which he inhabits like a snake
a well. No. Like water the shape
of the well. Any stone shakes
him, is him: then fear like a memory
of fading ripples to remind
him.

However, there is a moment they come
to him real as stones, there is a way
he can see, out of the corner of his mind,
and for a moment they stay. No snake
is as subtle, then, or as slight a shape,
shaking only as the wind shakes
him, softly, for passers beneath his tree
are few, and the least breath can confound
them.

His is a balance the wise man comes
to only by fumes and potions, or the way
of whirling in circles, until the mind
is water and the world is a shuddering snake
upon it, one last terrestrial shape,
then nothing: then the mind shakes
and settles, and no ark, though the sea
fall back from Ararat, can land
him.

II
He knows a world more like a song than a world,
not that it is beautiful, but that it is all
of a piece, that at the last moment when the whole
thing is teetering comes one more note and it is cold

perfect again. More like a lady than a song,
not that it is inviting, but that it is so
like him and unlike him at the same time, that no
singing can soften it, that he is at once king

to it and vassal. More like a graven image than
a lady, not, not that he could kneel
to it, merely that it is work of hands, it will
never be less perfect, it will never come down

from the altar and shake stone fists at him.
Now by the image, though his shuffling feet
deny his genuflections, though despite
his heart his arrant hands each time
drive off the lady when she deigns to come,
softly he works at it behind his mute
meticulous mouth, until eventually the wet
song wells at his lips in a transcendent stream.