I May Not See At All

Nineteen passed – most in
the depths of frigid waters
so deep. No lights have,
no lights could ever have,
even with will, no lights
would ever dare
to penetrate there.

Down below in frosty expanses
untouched, in spaces forgotten,
overlooked, right in front
in sight; consumed,
and solely constructed
by a time which froze,
restrung, wholly created me;
an amorphous me,
an estranged me;
a me that I could look in
with my eye that may not see.

Nineteen passed – most in
the clutches, the claws and
jaws of a beast, unseeing,
unfeeling, but more perceptive
than me, the one watching and waiting.

Fear-choked, hurt-kept
into blistering silence,
unraveling my stability; clinging
to hope that never came except
to drag lower my lands,
leaves me in deeper,
colder waters – I cannot swim;
I drown, oh, I slip beneath my
frown; I go to places of profound
intimacy and look in
with my eye that may not see.

Nineteen passed – most in
the season of temporal length,
[only]; there I dared not
and could not; I was never
seasoned.

Clever, I grew a poisonous tree
deep within me; rooted in
my Fall, frozen in snows,
thawed and dried in the heat of my anger;
serene and lonesome and weary,
the deepest of seclusions as the only
comfort to me, with its only
hand of wisdom;
and gently led on affections
catch me so that I look there, look in
with my eye that may not see.

Nineteen present – not all
down below, some here above
the waking world; above these storms
I can breathe fresh air, new smells,
the touch of that great portion of man’s life;
purer, tranquil, no less
nameless, unremembered.

Frugal, my time here
in sensations sweet.
The curiously obscure charms
of humanity here with me
and yet present, clear.
Quiet have been these paintings
entwined abundantly in a misery
divine; and I look to them,
at them, for them, look in
with my eye that may not see.

But see I do. Often see I 
that sensation called but vain belief – Often
say I that I feel with my eye,
I hear with my eye,
the most intense convulsion of the mind,
astonishment in rarity never mentioned nor found
nor – oh!

The extremes of my eye often see I.
And how I wonder whether
I may not see at all.