3251. AT READING PEAK

AT READING PEAK

I may have overstayed the waiting, slicing my back too far

down the marble slab I slept upon : awaiting a deliverance,

seeking a new sky, watching those midnight heavens for the

sight of your shooting star. Had it come, oh, oh, how I would

have known. As it was, in a form of still and desperate silence,

nothing occurred at all; and I waited still, and waited more.

-

I had known the vigil, had known the wake. I'd attended

these things, and even stayed - late, past prime, far deeper

into the night than I should have. For my being, it was all

Experience, that one, with the capital E. I singed my face

looking too deeply in. I scuttled and scoured too many

things - Rumi to Tagore and back again. No, no yes. No.

-

My marvelous reaction to things : Negation, with its

capital N. The tower on Reading's hill, some soulful

minaret, a pagoda, a temple, something narrow past

working. The old gravel road, a test grounds for

Duryea cars, a quarry from a time, long, long ago.

Now, little matters, and there is no rhyme.

These are ugly years, very weathered,

and, I sense, not mine.