Self Inventory

There is a region with loose skin and spite,
a cold belly of rocks, hells and ices.

There is a region of mute paralysis, implacable force nailing
me to a mood, a view, a spot, a frame.

There is a region forewarning violence, near-mayhem,
blood and blood and heat.

There is a region buttery, its ever rounding edges
slicking into my mind, a private fog.

There is a region unperturbed by circumstance, a spear
launched high into the vacuum of space.

There is a region of memory that signals to me,
a faint hand waving from behind an oak,
on the chalkhill, across the lapsed roadway.

There is a region for the clown, a whirling noisemaker
safe with the giggling universe, a smile
more fearless than a shoreline or moon.

There is a region done with this world, its relieved
embodiment drifting above the cities,
above the continents, sighing and waving
its absolute goodbyes.

There is a region awash with the fume of love's outrageous
existence, the ever ready metamorphosis.

There is a region I can only imagine to understand,
my thought never gaining its lover.

There is a region to understand without thought
or imagination, to feel silently mortal.

There is a region which shuns region (who am I?)
which eludes name, which radiates the anonymous
and is everywhere, unnoticed.

And there is a regionless region which is what is
and sounds
only like itself forever in all measures and all
fathoms of light and darkness, sleep and awakeness,
time and end of time, the infinite turns
of the infinite body, rising and falling
like waves and starlight.


Copyright Bill Nathan, 1997
Winner, Butterfly Chronicles Contest, Sausalito, CA