for René Passeron

You may not grow old too soon

if

Things you have known will come back to you again

No revision nor recall need put them back in place

Time was when you knew the time the place the face

Even the scarce women in prized moments gone in pain

Who would care nor what would it matter

in which life upon what water

you have trailed your fingers

upon waves of papers

Let your mind brush

some canvas in a rush

Left your mark

upon some bark

Wed some wanton women

spawned wholesome omens

Made as if the artier your words

held some moment in a perennial frame

Never to be banged away by fading suns

collapsing quasars

asteroid storms

puncturing galaxies

usurping black holes

Can this act of writing seize the moment

Or is it your way of saying

What else is there to be done?

Let the unknowable undermine the unknown

Here on this planet

we have made our sinuous conventions

stick to paper and canvas

stone and sound

And words that are haloed

by the sickness of the poet

though all is not lost for the pen

whose blood will

possess anchor expose

our futile justifications

explications

ratiocinations

doctoral dissertations

And generations will tremulously grant him

The right to unravel the eternities

For one who dared capture the moment

In the capsule of a poem

©T.Wignesan 1987 April 12, 1987 [from the collection : back to background material, 1993]