The Transparent Self
Keats said a poem has no self
yet we show up with one, writer or reader
thinking we are it until the poem
erases our familiar self. If the text were penciled in
there would be eraser-smudges.
When we learn this is what happens
we come to expect it, prepare to be overtaken
and undone. Watching a wood fire
redraw its logs with animal faces
fox, hawk, fish, escaping as forest, air, ocean.
Watching a team once ours, now us hustling
to climb back from 2 points down in the last 2 minutes.
Watching in an art museum as we become a starry night,
a tomato soup can, a floating patch of water lilies,
Venus born adult from an ocean wave.
In a theatre or concert hall as we become
a tragedy or a symphony. We come to cherish
the placeless space we are, that in and for a few moments
becomes any and every place.
Here and there a pond laps edges of forested land
saying, we are not so different, you’re wind-swayed evergreens
and I’m vagrant reactive ripples. We share a ground
that upholds our wanderings with steady hands.
The Dog Star 
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