A Valediction of the Essay

 

I find I want to write an essay. First I need a prologue. I cut open a pomegranate with a hunting knife.

& myth is no match for genuine seeds.

Still I thank Persephone as I eat. (Old stories offer partial enchantments.)

How many impure processes are there? 

There’s dying of course.

Aesthetics.

Gardening.

Reason.

**

Yet the essay functions as a stone door.

It stands for partial knowledge.

Displays permanence.

Invites visitors, particularly at night. 

**

Like music the essay must reveal the personal past.

It must deliver thousands of trivial expressions the way water carries seeds.

The evening itself is pleasing to us.

**

My final American destiny is to misunderstand the labyrinths.

The shopkeeper knows more than I about this nation.

I’m just a stone carver & a polemical one at that.

I should write in the cemetery.

The essay has gone somber on me.

All I can do is to try and be mannerly. 

**

Thinking of Heraclitus: 

Old man nibbled leaves
Got by on wits and viscera

**

The other side of the tapestry: praise something.

Early today I walked in and out of three gentle shadows.

I was allowed, briefly, to imitate the Fates.

**

We are using up these precious years, little ones.

 

S.K.