I vibrate in harmony with another heartbeat, another life
Like the strings on my coffee-colored guitar
Visiting that “remote important region” listening to “that voice”
I know perfectly well “the kind of person you are”
The “darkness around” me melts with a single word
A tune, a cup of kindly-brewed coffee, a stretched hand
I won’t turn away from a heartbeat I recognize
That is the biggest of all “betrayal in the mind”
When “cruelty” touched me deep and I was falling
The playfulness of life kept my bruised feet on the road
Isn’t friendship the engine that keeps the parade running?
Perhaps I have more faith in elephants than does Mr. Stafford
I work hard on spelling “trust” in languages that I know
Friendship is for life, it can’t be otherwise
I say let’s hold on to poems as do elephants to each other’s tails
And not turn away from a heartbeat we recognize
If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,
but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider–
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give–yes or no, or maybe–
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
May 5, 2000