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For Robert Creeley and Philip Lamantia
by Bart Mallio

Through occultation, we learn
by eclipse.  Lesser bodies
interpose themselves
between us and a source
of light (often one too bright
to be observed directly).  We
then augur via penumbra
and aura, intuiting the thing
by its inextinguishable
traces…
             Insomniac, caffeine-addled,
web-surfing, I learn belatedly
of your deaths, rapt in the blanket
of spring’s black chill.
                                      Three rooms away,
my ticking clock continues.
                                              I reach first
For Love, and then, Ekstasis.
Dressing, I find my green notebook,
and put up the water for green
tea.
       I will wake you
                                 first, with your
poems, and later,
                            with my own.
                                                    For me,
the paradox is
                       incarnational—
the presence of the obscure, the
inexpressible, the transcendent
in the revealed,
                         the articulated,
                                                 the words.

(April 11, 2005)

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