Where I Am Not

I like to walk in thought where I am not:
Rain in the valley where no footprints press
The soil with heavy tread of humanness;
The stream that flows like blood, without the clot

Of self demanding to be set apart.
I like to think of things bereft of thought,
Of places with no words to mark the spot,
Of trees unblemished by a dated heart.

And yet, despite me, there I always am,
As constant as the light by which I see,
As empty as a cloudless winter sky—

And on this empty page only the poem.
As I diminish, someone speaks in me,
Before and after words, the sole word—I.

Jakob Ziguras

The author’s book of poems Chains of Snow can be purchased directly through the Pitt Street Poetry website: http:http://pittstreetpoetry.com/jakob-ziguras/.