He who creates re-creates himself

for René Passeron

You may not grow old too soon
if
Things you have known will come back to you again
No revision nor recall need put them back in place

Time was when you knew the time the place the face
Even the scarce women in prized moments gone in pain

Who would care nor what would it matter
in which life upon what water
you have trailed your fingers
upon waves of papers

Let your mind brush
some canvas in a rush
Left your mark
upon some bark
Wed some wanton women
spawned wholesome omens

Made as if the artier your words
held some moment in a perennial frame
Never to be banged away by fading suns
collapsing quasars
asteroid storms
puncturing galaxies
usurping black holes

Can this act of writing seize the moment
Or is it your way of saying

What else is there to be done?

Let the unknowable undermine the unknown

Here on this planet
we have made our sinuous conventions
stick to paper and canvas
stone and sound

And words that are haloed
by the sickness of the poet
though all is not lost for the pen
whose blood will
possess anchor expose

our futile justifications
explications
ratiocinations
doctoral dissertations

And generations will tremulously grant him
The right to unravel the eternities
For one who dared capture the moment
In the capsule of a poem