The Poet Who is Never Seen

dedicated to the character of Sabur in Chingiz Aitmatov's play "The Ascent of Mt. Fuji".


Sometimes the living speak, sometimes the dead;
eloquence in a corpse is most becoming
when you figure the thousands who walk
about with ghosts inside them, never speaking
or hearing any more than what has been said before.
Shadows that have so much effect that they
never have to step out on the stage.
Invisibles that are all around us,
inside us.  They have spoken and been
captured on a page, awakening and animating
what seems empty.  They fill up countless
lives with the lives of a few.
Watching, watching, always feeling what
is out of step and out of understanding.
In the turmoil they are apart but
burning brightly.  So brightly that they
actually become their own ghosts
which haunt us while they still live.
Giving everything inside for the future
leaves nothing for the future, nothing
even in the present but watching
the great work unfold as the world
changes.  Winter on the taiga is bad.
The white-death is all around and
prison is more than wire and a
bullet can expunge.  It is
fear that in the death, pain,
misery you will lose the choice of
dream; the fear you will forget how.
It is more than can be killed.
Even among the sameness of days
there can be a uniqueness in people
which makes them live; it is the
kind of ghost they choose.  It causes others
to live harder in the image of
someone they did not even know.
Hardness in winter is wrapped up in
anything which will keep one warm.
It keeps the man-made barriers
up so the taiga won't swallow the
soul, and so doing find out how
free it truly is.  The wire keeps
the infection of spirit from spreading.
Night and memories cause the
stones to roll down the mountain
into the dark.  Like the cracking
and building of the torrents of spring-thaw,
they create new signs of life.
New sins teach the winter-death
passes into spring as a
memory of word without meaning.
The reality is much more consuming
in its nature.  Iron-bellied men who
live on the edge of the forest take
second place to the feel, taste,
smell of the earth.  The touch of another
person's flesh isn't a memory
or a hidden thing.  It throws off
the furs of winter and lives because
of an unseen memory which kept it
warm.  Friends wouldn't be what they are
if they had not met in the past.
Their nature is wrapped up in every action
taken, every dream spoken.
They are changed by the specter of
friends who are not there.
The nature of the spoken word,
the fact of spell in poetry,
magic is the beauty of creating new
at the expense of a moment lost,
in the whirl of springs remembered.
For all the dreary
parts of the poet, the human becomes
the least of all burdens.  It at
least dreams the simple dream freely.
This the ghost in us all: betrayed
of what could have been for all
those who will hold both the ghost
and what is memory.  They
are the ones who will never be seen
except as a train standing off
in the distance; who the passengers
are is never known.  And they in turn,
while sitting on the train
will look out, never knowing who
was watching.  Each will only feel
the faint shadows of the words
spoken before the headstones
in the graveyard on the hill.
They linger in the air unheard.
Rails stretching off into the distance,
built by the hands beneath the ground,
are covered by the same snow which
falls on the hill.  Both are glorified
by the wild flowers in spring.
When it comes to the hearts of people,
each is affected by the other.
If the words were spoken,
they live with the daemon who walks in each.

              published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.