"No one is empty or innocent"
–Marvin Bell
I was innocent this morning. I hadn't voted. I hadn't turned on the television. If I had a cultural memory it was of summer in Finland when I was four years old. Some kids were in a boat. A girl was singing. She was in the bow, she was at the dangerous edge of her childhood. She must have been twelve years old. She was singing a folk song. I remember she had a recorder, a wooden flute. For a brief time we followed the lessons of the sun. I was innocent then. I hadn't voted. If I was empty I didn't know what to do about it.
Nowadays songs are deep as prayer. We get away with singing. That's how we think of it. When we sing we feel that we're stealing something. And we are.
Look. I'm writing a song on this paper. I am a confessional poet. And there's the ghostly shape of the girl in the boat. She sings like Circe, even though I'm not heroic.
Tomorrow perhaps I won't be this innocent. I might vote. That's tomorrow. A frameless door.
Planet of the Blind 