poem from Patience

Eric Sneathen

i try to be convincing

the birds in rippling

circular movements

i try to notice nothing

but a singular cloud

of life drifting above

but it keeps unspooling

outlasting my emptiness

& such was my history

this was its particularity

& i copied its gesture

until i couldn’t bear it

any longer a cloud

& my hands corrected

& my posture shifted

into the communal life

of me & my hands

making the container

i’m still in pain here

i’m thronging masses

of wild nerves & wild

to take off & at last

the sweetest escape

of these lovely songs

the empty fig trees

after a long summer

i like to fall in love

like the sun is rising

over the cold blue

ridge i lift up my legs

over the misty edge

of what happened

& wanted to disappear

holding a sanctuary or

maybe it’s just a cloud

but i still have loving

the container of me

& let it go forward

& around each face

like the petals turning

this one is pretty &

the lizard is a guide

heating up its heart

this one is quite daring

from deep within

& everything grown

like this flower here

this basket is woven

or a button stitched

into my second-hand

garment like honey

it’s hardly anymore

of me & me hands

i’m using my tusks

to get further into

the sideways motion

of the animals i am

the snout & hoof

to say with sweetness

the pretty petals i am

only a surface &

i try to notice nothing

when i look down

into the night water

the stars as a sanctuary

the water & the life

from this happening

sleeping from the sun

it looks like work

it only looks like

my pain is particular

the name for a bird

disappearing into heat

i sweat myself apart

from nomenclature

i would escape

i would hide experience

from myself if i

could hideaway language

or the image apart

from the happening

as petals of experience

this rose might be

cleft & without clarity

i still have myself &

i was only a shape

of a cloud i noticed

bruised by particularity

& this is a confession

the singular hopelessness

of my very own life

it happened in the heart

something incalculable

to be so & extinguished

to give into another

light of me to contain it

pouring from the eyes

it was so difficult

to be worth it truly

& then i turned it over