The Scholar
There in little tidings packed in ribbon,
among the oleander I set beside my notes,
she sung no as well as no can be said,
or sung, with wording I can never reproduce.
The parcel with its ribbon, an honest thing,
undoubtedly, did not know itself and its
long words, but me
am all creation from cell to symbol
obstructed by its very gaze, held a hand
I do not own, nor wish I did and said no,
sweetly as perfume haunts the fleeting scent of more.
No; no bell to toll, no Faerie land awaits,
the eglantine is paper thin and folded
in a page beside the oleander.
The tales, all Chaucer, Joyce, Dorsey,
Keats, swim with the shelved shore of mind for comfort
until, like all good eventuals
I am with her no, a bottomless no,
sent with ribbon and retracted lips.
Everything I feel can be summed up in words.
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