Via Negativa

Here you are, cast 
once again in the role
of the afflicted— in some

stories, you spin
something coarse into gold.
In others, you count 

the uncountable— a driveway
pooling with gravel, a tray
of mixed seed to separate

by color and size. Mostly 
you have no quarrel with  
the material— grain and rock 

are quiet and uncomplaining.
You think you learn something
— how nothing's truly 

without end, how the impossible
is maybe the poorer cousin
of the infinite, which

being what it is, 
can never be exhausted 
in the first place.

You start and stop and start again, not knowing
where to begin. You try to think of it in terms 
of a conversation, but even then someone 

has to hand over a thread and wait for the signal 
to begin. You try to think of it as a game—
start and stop and start again, not knowing

where to go, afraid meander will turn to blunder.
And you want conversation that means something, 
not conversation with a general "someone"

who could be anyone and not the one you want
to talk to. You stir the substance of memory:  
start and stop and start again, not knowing

what you'll turn up, where it will lead— 
you know it goes deep, down to the water table. 
That's where you seek the roots of conversation.

When you stand at the lip of the well and call,
only your voice bounces back and echoes. Do it again,
start and stop and start again, not knowing but knowing:
in conversation you'd talk with someone besides yourself. 
  

The man who helped prune the branches
of the fig mounded its lopped-off limbs 
next to the recycling bin. That was two 
weeks ago. But now on the tree, the ends 
are putting forth little flames of green, 
signals of a new season of growing. 
No matter and in spite of what we do, 
despite what happens, the hidden mechanism 
of spring reasserts itself— Imagine if night
never turned into day; if the parent outlived
the child, if the sea swallowed then spat
itself out at the very place it began. 
It's said snakes don't feel pain 
when they molt. But sometimes, old injuries, 
infections, or even weather can prevent 
shedding. Over time, stuck in its own skin, 
it might wither away from blindness and 
malnutrition. In solitude, I crave
sweet occupations that can be enjoyed
with others. When I am with others, 
sometimes my spirit turns restless,  
desiring only the intimacy of silence,
the absence of expectation. Perhaps that's
kind of what people mean when they say I 
don't know what to do with myself. 
Either way, we're full of questions. Night 
after night, the skies fill with a language
we are still trying to understand.  

Mother Superior is out again, 
I joke when my greys start to show: 
band barely an eighth of an inch, 
edge of a wimple framing forehead 
and temples. Why don't you just 
let it go, my daughters ask, instead 
of buying box dye— Platinum's trendy 
these days. The average human has 
over a hundred thousand hairs 
or hair follicles, and about five 
million over the entire body. 
I think of long-ago afternoons 
when my mother lay on the couch, 
pushed tweezers into my hands 
and asked me to pluck her strays 
while she drowsed. She'd pay me 
five centavos for every short, 
wiry one, which I lay on upholstery 
fabric like tally marks. She'd part 
my hair in the middle and clip it back 
on each side before I left for school; 
and stroked my head as she read me 
to sleep— I'd stretch like a cat. 
Even the very hairs on your head 
are numbered, says a bible verse. But 
they can also grow back, until the day 
they might begin to thin, or stop al-
together at an indefinite point in time.