The First Existential

Crystal isolations, whole solicitations
To a state of supreme being
Where nothing is supreme: think

The vagaries of your own experience
Into a cold conscience, which grasps hold
Of the iron bonds and twists them into an imagination,
Or at least the palpable possibility
Of an imagination, or even then the barest shadow
Of such an imagination, which becomes an instant,
Instantaneous with the moment, of momentary
Significance. You're still locked

In the cave, a cavern more hollow
Than crystal, more crystal, blue shadows, cold fragrance,
Than hollow, but in all events hollowed and hallow,
Which is the space not of imagination, but the preconception,
Before any reception, of reality's womb. Locked in the immensity,

In the enormity, in the monstrosity, which is a monstrous omen
Of birth, a showing forth that conceals, a concealment that hides,
Cringes, and still conceives and deceives
New valances of beauty, there is some stirring,

Almost like the beating of a breath, almost like the breathing
Of a wind, the winding of curves and twists
Into hearty knots. No motion is possible, and the antithesis of motion

Is silence, quiet waiting, but a waiting that prefigures
Action, or an action in the waiting, since the cringing weight
Won't fall, but hangs suspended in the possibility, the elaboration,
Configurations of time refiguring, calculating, planning,
Clever and dolous, doleful, dull in traces
Of smooth silver, granite silver, pomegranate silver

Tracing the reciprocity of the prison, of the season, but most like a lesion
Or a leech, sucking the dry entrails of the great
Beast, reborn and renewing when the day renews, when the moon
Sheds moonshine like a woman emerged from a pool,
Sheds starlight like the beaded drops of sweat
Shooting out over the horizon. There is one image facing you, a face

Who imagines you, and all existence resolves
Into the mysterious glare of a light
And the singular darkness of those bulbous eyes.