4 – ian

1
here and stand i wonder

i wonder about that dark silhouette
that i spoke to as it cut across
the grass – humbled
by the church a mirage
illuminated white
in the dark damp drizzle
of a spring connecticut night

i wonder still about a night spent there
contemplating indecisiveness in that moist grass
where out of the dark it was said what i had thought
“we walk around eyes on our feet and stub our toes anyway”
then i looked at the steeple there enlightened
and from where my head was nestled
i almost forgot to notice
the spotlights
with visible beams
and pointed directions

and with wonder i remember all the careless saturdays
boarding school nights when
as i walked past
my mind was still hot to change
because of those heads that surrounded me then
filled with thoughts escaping as words
in that heated sincerity of limitless youth

and i wonder almost in disbelief
at the ties and buttons
the books and lessons
these conversations

the way i feel alone in winter
and alive in spring
in the same place

the warm smell of rain
and the metallic taste of snow

and that with these hands i can begin to understand myself
and what that means
and with these eyes i can begin not to see myself
that with this mind-
with this mind i can be nowhere
if anywhere at all

that with these feet i can seem to stand still

that i can stand here with these feet
look past myself with these eyes
find in this mind
the will with these hands
to record a moment

2
the things i have seen with these eyes
and the places my feet have trampled
the foreign conversations through which i’ve stumbled

the strange diagonals and directionless ways
in which i have grown

the sounds people make
the words people use
and the beautiful obscure jumbled minds that
have no limits besides themselves
and the words without pentameters
the sounds that compliment our silence

i wonder at my relatively momentary lapses of wonder

if there is a natural silence
it isn’t a lack of noise

like madness is not a lack of sanity
and hatred isn’t careless

like the raindrops i caught
as i walked through that wet
connecticut spring night
my thoughts fall into my hands
where too often
i drop them

~ by engelberger on April 12, 2008.