To The Words

When it happens you are not there
O you beyond numbers beyond recollection passed on from breath to
breath given again from day to day from age to age charged with
knowledge knowing nothing

indifferent elders indispensable and sleepless

keepers of our names before ever we came to be called by them

you that were formed to begin with you that were cried out you that were
spoken to begin with
to say what could not be said