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NOT EVEN AN AMBIGUOUS ANSWER
By Quentin Smith
Whenever I open my eyes
I see that everything is a statue
Molded from strangeness;
Or rather, each thing is a strange
Sculpturing of something even stranger.
Look at this morning forming outside my window:
A pure luminous silverteen
Is refracted beyond the trunks,
And penetrates through the horizon
To the colorless dimension beyond.
But what is configuration space?
Reseda-stroked pine bristles
Zag in layers, as a frontpiece
To the shades of the sky’s
Ancient philosophy, a philosophy
That cannot be found in any book
Or even put into words.
Why do I write?
The redness of a door
Blasts out of the house
Away from dark retreating walls.
The mere appearance of a movement
Makes me wonder why anything moves at all.
Why is not everything perfectly frozen,
Timeless, translucent ice?
For what reason do motion and rest
Continue to keep nothingness helpless?
A driveway runs toward the street
Between strips of bleached green.
Where do they acquire their identities?
Who says that is a driveway, that a street,
And that a green lawn? I say they are
Nothing but veils over shapeless echelons
Of ciphers that cannot be decoded.
Written 1973 and 2002
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