Paul Surman
Entity
Who was there is what we want to know,
Whose faintest trace that was
(patient analysis proved inconclusive),
Listened to the nightingale
Then dispersed along the lane like mist
So that who or what they were, or are
Could only be guessed, is only speculation.
We like to think of them as sentient
Because to be alive is what we know
And what we always seem to want is life,
Is living, though sometimes we hesitate and wait
Before turning this way or that in the dark
In case who or what is listening, in a leering void
That is not sentient but sensed.
So we watch for signs, define omens,
See ill favour in the magpies gleaming eye,
Imagine a landscape of significant alignments,
The occult power of numbers, hoping that our dream
Of apples means long life, faithfulness of lovers, know
That in damp woods enchanters nightshade grows,
Which they say is used to raise the devil.
Call it what you like, but an absence walks the earth,
Give it all the names there are for emptiness or negative,
It is like a bird that you must try to catch in the finest
Mist nets of coincidence, knowing that even if you could,
It is the finite nature of our mind suggests an entity exists,
That is not bird or sound you seek, but something
In the secular darkness, perhaps some echo bouncing back.
Page(s) 175
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