The First Question
The first question has never been asked
the one with no history, before before
we didn’t know we were it
until it appeared, draping our history
around its nakedness like a foreign flag
wearing a younger version of our faces
we started to ask but couldn’t
there were neither seams nor cracks
to sprout a question
a noxious weed
no edges, no dark corners
no rivers asking to be crossed
no mountains wanting a steady climb
no clinging fog, no fuzzy thinking
to be unraveled or bypassed
only a pleasant humming of bees
in a space broad enough
to catch and hold song
We watch a butternut army
splash across Chickamauga Creek
armpit deep in places and September cold
for the biggest of the war’s western battles
against a blue-dressed army
they in early morning sunlight
we in darkness in the camps the survivors
will make in an exhausted evening, warming our hands
by a fire long turned to ash
the deep woods strewn with abandoned bodies
veterans have joined us
with their long stare
a well-lit seeing opens and holds them
all their lives out of ordinary time
we are this long seeing, our body-minds fallen away
with their questions, their longing
The Dog Star 
2 Responses to “The First Question”
I like the plaintive quality of this and the time compression that works on multiple levels…it sounds authoritative and personal…
Thanks, Craig. I always find I have more to learn about what poems can do, and what they can’t.