One.

Webern’s paradox: spare solitary

elements, yet each wound in the web that’s torn apart,

then stitched, then fused, the gleaming cicatrix

become the very twisting of the thread.

Can one encounter fix the axis of a life?

A single glance, the brush of hands,

an indrawn breath: all specificities

preshadow loss, hold at their centre

absence, empty echo of the ardent voice.

When I have won through to the end, done

with the world, I shall have made it simple,

clear, the infinite variety of circumstance

set to one side so that in this,

my world, there will exist no tragedy.

Jan Zwicky