Reading Bob Hicok’s Words for Empty and Words for Full (with thanks to Nancy Pearl for the discovery), and finding all over again that poetry has its uses.
From “Whimper”:
…and why ask that why
of the larger why, why did this happen, and why from that why
branch to the why am I alive why, there’s the why
are we here why and the why do we let so many questions
begin with a bang why and the why do we say aftermath
when it never ends, the desire to add for some and subtract
for others, we say we want answers, that it’s very quiet
around here now, all this light, the sun more full of itself
by the day until July will strip us of shadows and time
will seem to have given up on night, why is the song
we add to nature, we’re like birds as kids, why why why,
we sang, we sing, whole flocks of us swirling now,
turning our turns into turning, not knowing
in our direction what our direction is, how things
get decided undecided, lost if you need to find us
is where we are.
I mean.
