one instinct made you rise
out of this life, into another’s,
then from another’s, circling to your own?
You are folded in my eyes,
whose irises will open
to a white sky with bird and woman gone.” Derek Walcott (from his poem, “Guyana”)
Recurrence is the dead silence of the heartless noon Belonging neither to the certainty of the Precipitated moon nor to the improbable out Pouring of phrases allowed with stingy Grace, a hollowed out sense of remaining True to the repetition, the steady thump Thump of a wary heart, a quickening quick Enough for a child's sense of proportion. Recurrence is the most recent annulment of the pre Varication of whim, the new instalment Of story, of rhyme, the building up of Yesterday in the mist of now. For the Meter to start effecting, the efficacy Of the myth has to give. For the thump Thump to stay true to the repetition, the Greys are allowed to persist in tandem. Recurrence is the outpouring of this, of the untamed Thus, of the poem's longing for bird, for Woman, for the newness of word to spill Over and to shriek. A final word of caution, A parting shrill of care, a deafening of Syllables aligned with song's want of care, And a few parables of old, each one a pebble Of some life, a grain of solidity in thick mist.