Tuesday poem #91 : Andy Weaver : Incognito

clinamen, rückenfigur, contrapposto,
the world in its objects
turns away. Time.
Space. Change
is the miracle the twist offers
a wink and beckoning finger.
Even the unwobbling pivot walks,
precision notates its precession.
Language is not soul
's psychopomp. Qu'est-ce que c'est?
This is the joy of the world
it changes. The littoral zone
of the literal. It is change
and we will always know this
by never knowing it. It. This. Dike
eris. Strife is justice. A wave lost
in the distant sea is not
a diminishment of the water.
Civil. Nautical. Astronomical.
Night black with the stories
of moon. Dark enough for each
and every, every and each gives
way. Astronomical. Nautical.
Civil. A sun spins grooves across
the sky to weigh the scales
of the moon. This marks the ultimate
expression of the sanctity
of the ordinary: no matter where
we turn--toward the stars, the rain,
the worm underfoot--there is nothing
but divinity anywhere. Heraclitus plays
knucklebones with children in
the temple of Artemis. The dear
as always, leads the hunt, the vowels
stumble after. Noli me tangere.
The problem's crux, it would seem,
is that we live precisely
at the speed of change. Agape,
he experienced agápē. But what
does it mean. Whatever it
means. Whatever, it means.

Andy Weaver has published two books of poetry, Were the bees (NeWest 2005) and Gangson (NeWest 2011) and a recent chapbook, Concatenations, through above/ground press. He teaches contemporary poetry and poetics at York University.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan