Via Negativa

One evening she copied notes
for an assignment without really understanding 
why it mattered. The professor said there was 
a difference between a paraphrase and a precis: 
one sharpened your mind, the other could dull it. 
And so she practiced sharpening, hoping to produce 
a brght graphite point out of the small heap of curls 
and wood shavings, anticipating the feel of the first 
stroke laid on paper, the letters vining into words 
into sentences into thoughts that could carry 
their weight across the page and to the reader 
that might come upon them. Perhaps fictions 
learned as lessons last the longest. Perhaps a story
is remembered best if someone writes it down.

 A first taste leads to another, then another.
        Just as in the days leading up to our family  
potlucks, there’s excitement at the prospect of eating 
               for the pleasure of tasting what someone else 
        has made. We’ve become too familiar with  
the shapes produced by our everyday hunger. 
               The crackle from oil, the bite of pink peppercorn, 
         the marriage of mint with watermelon and lime 
are so much more interesting. Before we leave for this 
                communal repast, I drag the old garden hose 
         out front. Everything suffers in this blistering 
heat—the rosemary and gardenia, the twin 
                 Japanese maples and pale hydrangeas. We 
         all lap it up, lean toward the cool heart of water.                      

How to be a heart without a human hunger, how to be
       a hunger you can sate without harm? Today I went
               into the yard to see if any figs were ripe enough 
to pick, and found a small nest in the fork of a branch. 
       I couldn’t tell if it was abandoned, or if speckled eggs
               nestled inside. Underneath, everything seemed 
a call and answer of dapple and wing; everything 
       thatched thick with heat that we index, as if it 
               could be pressed into the pages of a book.
Just a few days ago, reports of a rare pink dolphin 
        sighting in the Outer Banks turned out to be 
               computer-generated: fake. How to explain
the need to satisfy that kind of hunger, that desire
        to flood the world with poor copies of itself?
A first taste leads to another, then another.

Past the solstice, the longest day, 
        summer begins to reel in its boundlessness. 
I write a letter to you, because I dream 

        the moon will swallow me whole when I leave 
this life if I don't remember how to let go 
        of the thread that tethers these flower boats 

to the dock. My end is frayed; I've clutched it 
        so tightly though I admit, there have been days 
when I nearly fed everything to my sorrow.  

        When at last I light a votive and set it afloat 
on the water, it is like signing the name by which 
        you've known me all your life. It is what 

one does before leaving the temple 
        after praying at the feet of the gods, after 
dropping a final offering into  the metal box.