Wednesday, December 11, 2019

DEAR MIND (JOHN LEVY) ~










Dear Mind,



You are dear.  Without you I'm nothing.

Often with you I'm almost nothing



but you tell me that I can't really

conceive of nothing, so you instruct me



to use "almost" up there. When I first learned

your name, Mind, I was a child.



Your name was not one of those words

that interested me. It seemed like other words



for things, like car, sidewalk, leaf.

Except unlike those things I couldn't see you



or ride inside you (it never occurred to me

I could) or walk on top of you or watch you



turn colors and fall. In many ways both of us

miss those days, days that if there were no school



were sometimes fabulously unending.

The nights were rarely as good, school or not, since



you made me so afraid of the dark. Yes, I'm

blaming you. And whatever parts of me



are not you

also deserve blame. So here we are, both



67, truly approaching the dark. You suggest I write

"truly and falsely approaching the dark"



and there, have I satisfied you?




______
______________

John Levy
Silence Like Another Name
otata's bookshelf
2019