There is a moment
when the familiar becomes lost
and I am trying to find it.It should be a gradual
process, the loosening of leaves
from the fold of bark. Insteadthere is a clear point
of divide, between what is
and what you have knownlike a boy who wakes up one morning
and clears his throat to find
his voice no longer his own.It could be a similar instant
when a chick knows it is time
to tear down the walls of its shellwhen an old man knows these
are the last monsoon rains
he will ever see.We are blind beyond this point,
having come ourselves
from just such a moment as this.So much time is spent
denying its presence, fending
it off with words, holdingback the sea with sand
castles as the tide comes in,
treating it like a stranger.But when I find it I will ask it
its name, so that when it arrives
I can greet it and we can meetface to face, equal and unafraid.
Published in Testing the Silence (1997)
