[W T Clark]

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Rev.1
.............for John Riley

I stand in my skin in the rain in this storm

& wonder at lightning that shows me to me

I know I am not the rain bluffing at form

though I'm as shred-emptied & cleansed as its sky


a mask to my mask that's amicably doffed

to disclose an absence in each stutter of light

nor am I the hill or the hill's dazzled crop

of scrub-grass I've crawled on: as if I might root


as if I'm a blank that the rain can't define

since nothing makes nothing: disjointed & beating

& I who am either a king or a thorn

overhear myself to hear only wind speaking


it is time the flood ceased: that the Fool emerged

to sing the aloneness that reigns after rain

it is time I were not sheathed in myself like a sword

for a silence to ripen me with a name

***



I stand in my skin in the rain in this storm

& wonder at lightning that shows me to me

I know I am not the rain bluffing at form

though I'm as shred-emptied & cleansed as its sky


a mask to my mask that's amicably doffed

with each I it stutters with stuttering light

nor am I the hill or the hill's dazzled crop

of scrub-grass I've crawled on: as if I might root


as if I'm a blank that the rain can't define

since nothing makes nothing: disjointed & beating

& I who am either King Lear or a thorn

overhear myself to hear only wind speaking


it is time the flood ceased: time the Fool emerged

to remonstrate with the aloneness that reigns

after rain: time he were not sheathed like a sword

in me, time for a silence to ripen a name

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