Coda

Abstract

A poem, I have suggested in these pages, is a rarity. It is a mere shade. The poem murmurs, whispers. It gestures like a small flower opening in the morning. The poem is in search for an inconceivable origin; it performs a no-longer grasping. It signifies in the resonances of words, in the silences of its line and stanza breaks. It opens towards an empty intimacy of time. The origin of poetry is the cause of weeping. The poem does the work of which I am not master. It holds a vigil for the dying. It delays the haste of our end. It signifies like the remains of a person. The poem remembers the dead. It remembers the beautiful.