Wednesday, July 30, 2025

And Dylan Went Electric

The old Chines man named Po
sat on the mountain and disappeared,
his meditations swept away by the wind.
The mountain, too, dissolved over time.

The river cannot remain a river

as long as it finds a home in the sea,

and oceans cannot remain water

as long as the clouds read the waves like Braille.

 

You and I will not inhabit skin and bones

when clocks are frozen at the end of time.

The earth prays for dust and dirt

that it may remain a celestial compost heap.

 

The lighthouse drops below the horizon

as the freighter lumbers out to sea.

The Book of Changes is made of yarrow sticks

that fall like scarecrows too tired to scare the sky.

 

Do you understand these lines

unraveling like a tapestry with threads

pulled by a peasant tired of its design?

Even this poem must die.


~William Hammett



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