Edge of the Poem

by Alfred K. LaMotte

The poem is a vertigo of edges,

a falling climber’s secret ecstasy,

this world slipping from his grip at last.

Poetry is an extreme sport.

If you understand this spun

blue silence, you’ve turned

gravity into wine.

Once you leap into a poem,

rising and falling are the same.

Rabi’a, Whitman, Hafız, Rilke

stood upon love’s ledge and leapt

into winglessness,

crippled eagles in the void.

Or did they plummet like flung stones

into Bashō’s pond?

The sound is all that matters.

Fall with the words and crush

their meaning on your tongue.

There’s no name for descending light

that curves back toward its blackest center.

This is why we sing about it.

Neither ground nor grammar count,

but the gesture of this breath, naked

with her lover, the next inhalation.

From Savor Eternity One Moment at a Time, Houston, Texas: Saint Julian Press, 2016, page 29.