Snail
There's a luminous space
in
the world, a threshold
where light from the next room
There's a luminous space
falls
into this dark one,and we feel it when the mind
settles on anything
There's a luminous space
for any length: the baretrees gusting with ghost leaves
in this violent wind,
There's a luminous space
the staircases zigzaggingup building faces
like afterthoughts
There's a luminous space
of
a careless architect.Now consider this snail
you found escaping from
There's a luminous space
its uprooted universewhen you rinsed the spinach
from
the organic store:
There's
a luminous space
doesn't it seem to bea
literal emblem
of concentration, deep
There's a luminous space
tarnish of its shellspiraling into some
wordless
realm?
There's a luminous
space
Amazing how it staysin the
exact same spot
for days, an inhuman
There's a luminous space
patience, glued to
the undersideof a leaf in its
containerized California
There's a luminous space
you've improvised on the shelf.We debate about this:
laziness,
inertia,
There's a luminous
space
jet lag from its journey?What
could be its thoughts
or its dreams of a world
There's a luminous space
gathered
in inchesthrough its bleary antennae,
its body of petroleum gel?
There's a luminous space
I tend to think it's alla matter of survival--
why
move, after all, when
There's
a luminous space
the safest route is stillness,to become the leaf's whorled
shadow, hard camouflage
There's a luminous space
swallowing
the soft core?But you're not sure.
You keep wondering about
There's a luminous space
the life inside that spiral,that point-- by definition without
dimension, so doesn't that mean
There's a luminous space
it is spirit?-- from whichthe volume descends.
In the book you're
reading
There's a luminous
space
on Jewish mysticism,God
is said to have become
nothing in order to create
There's a luminous space
everything.
Which is allbeyond us, in our all-too-human
apprehensions. Still, you
There's a luminous space
stare, drawn continuallyinto this tiny vortex,
matching
its patience with
There's
a luminous space
your own-- that qualitywhose root and sound are so close
to passion, and
which Balzac
There's
a luminous space
said, beautifully, comes
closest in us
to the process that makes the world.
There's a luminous space
-from Slag
