Aspect, 4

published

Nimrod International Journal of the Arts,
vol 39 number 1, fall/winter ‘95



Bear,
though resolute and intent upon further swallowing,
paused upon him to gaze,
and it was not that he’d minded so very much being drug out of his tent
into deep and meaningful grass,
nor did it matter to him whether he’d lived fully well
or not, either
in the eyes of those who would remember him
or in the gobblings of his own mind,
nor was it
the
issue
that beneath a moon hung inside foam, frozen flying,
stars
across dark air hovered, biding
upon the many moments of this dying below them
to rise to release the firmament’s pausing
by passing through,
yet were neither moved nor disinterested,
but it was that within
its
somber eyes,
as he howled through its renewed and earnest gulping,
he’d clearly beheld in them,
as well as above him,
for the very first time in his living,
utter, innocent and perfect absence of malice
for which he had not an answer that would suffice
truth
to endure in his place upon the passage.