03-17-2026, 07:38 AM
Senescent
My mind’s escaping, entering
a space I only notice when
it’s gone
These last three days
three words returned too late
they’d each been inaccessible
not found by thought
or alphabet
when concepts needed names
snare: caught out, I couldn’t name
simple rabbit-catching
anchored loop of wire
when a child asked how
to trap a leprechaun
Kurds: buried name
one brave people snared
in four countries
and their aspiration
to restore a nation
Etruscans: secret name
tribes of smiling mystery
exhumed from Tuscan provenance
rising in dream-murmurs
as lost words do
How much of my mind’s
refined vocabulary
has evanesced for good
hidden or erased
soft-sunk for what of life is left
in a room so finely
padded with absence
that its walls
cannot be seen or felt?
My mind’s escaping, entering
a space I only notice when
it’s gone
These last three days
three words returned too late
they’d each been inaccessible
not found by thought
or alphabet
when concepts needed names
snare: caught out, I couldn’t name
simple rabbit-catching
anchored loop of wire
when a child asked how
to trap a leprechaun
Kurds: buried name
one brave people snared
in four countries
and their aspiration
to restore a nation
Etruscans: secret name
tribes of smiling mystery
exhumed from Tuscan provenance
rising in dream-murmurs
as lost words do
How much of my mind’s
refined vocabulary
has evanesced for good
hidden or erased
soft-sunk for what of life is left
in a room so finely
padded with absence
that its walls
cannot be seen or felt?
Non-practicing atheist

