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More poems by Hayden CarruthHayden Carruth | Print this page.Print | View and Write CommentsComments | Books by Hayden CarruthBooks by Hayden Carruth

Words In A Certain Appropriate Mode

Hayden Carruth

It is not music, though one has tried music.
It is not nature, though one has tried
The rose, the bluebird, and the bear.
It is not death, though one has often died.

None of these things is there.

In the everywhere that is nowhere
Neither the inside nor the outside
Neither east nor west nor down nor up
Where the loving smile vanishes, vanishes
In the evanescence from a coffee cup
Where the song crumbles in monotone
Neither harmonious nor inharmonious
Where one is neither alone
Nor not alone, where cognition seeps
Jactatively away like the falling tide
If there were a tide, and what is left
Is nothing, or is the everything that keeps
Its undifferentiated unreality, all
Being neither given nor bereft
Where there is neither breath nor air
The place without locality, the locality
With neither extension nor intention
But there in the weightless fall
Between all opposites to the ground
That is not a ground, surrounding
All unities, without grief, without care
Without leaf or star or water or stone
Without light, without sound
     anywhere, anywhere. . .

Added: 1 Sep 2001 | Last Read: 8 Jun 2025 12:00 AM | Viewed: 5150 times

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URL: http://plagiarist.com/poetry/792/ | Viewed on 7 June 2025.
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