Marc Wiegand

To a Reader

(For Ben Fletcher and Karen Pine)

1.

Invisible reader (listening) own

this offer, hear (however slight)

these words the cause for your effect.

To hear and mark them is a loan,

though unsecured, for which I write.

This verse, your principal due, collects

your interest paid by this my text.

 

2.

Dear correspondent, without you

there is no poetry at all.

These tongueless lines (a tree of words)

that, lacking any presence, fall

in a silent forest unobserved,

soundlessly because unheard.

 

3.

Philosophers argue for its sake

and violate their common sense,

and, though uncommon, such debate

is to the commoner’s expense:

that fallen trees cannot be heard

because an absent ear refutes

all sound. Alike, unspoken words

(the fugitive thoughts I think) are mute,

unread. I spill the fallen ink,

which falls in the forest of my route,

and murmurs to be overheard.

 

4.

With tongue-tied tip, my scribble-pen,

or the keyboard of my soul (turned “On”),

I hack and chop the alphabet,

the obdurate wood of words. No one

is here to find the shadows cast

in the web and mumbling wreck of mind,

the parts of speech that, random, drop

onto my scrabble-page, their guide

(my only prop) a blade that rots

in the poverty of cold intent,

unbeveled by my use or wit

in the rioting slums of thought.

 

5.

Come reader, listen, let me tell

a recent truth: the deaf can hear,

and the mute can speak by this our spell,

the traffic on our stage that proves

our trade: that distance disappears

when you and I are found and moved

by the quorum of this page.

 

6.

Read and know the smell of rain,

the touch of lips on lip, a flood

to wash away the world, a wind

upon the battered cheek, a flame

that will kiss and cleanse the earth of blood,

a balm to close your scars, rebirth

to heal by charms your wound.