The next poem, The Apparent, was written.
Well, it was written to George Often.
I didn't dedicate it to him because--
but I wrote it because I had spent the day talking to him.
The Apparent.
When I say transparency, I don't mean seeing through.
I mean the way a symbol is made when
X is drawn over O as the world moves when it is named.
In the sense of truth by consciousness, which
we translate as opposites.
The space we breathe is also called distance.
Presence gives, absence allows and calls until presence
holds the invisible weeping.
Transparent in the way the heart sees old leaves.
As we become more like the hills by feeling, I mean permanence.
As when the deer and I regard each other.
There was no fear then.
When she went with her young from the meadow,
back into the nearly night of the woods,
it was because the rain came down suddenly harder.