Life is art
Art is freedom
Freedom is a flower
That has no reason
Reason is a stone
A stone is a bird
A bird is a notion
Put into words
A word is a spider
A spider is a blessing
A blessing is a costume
Sewn out of guessing
A guess is a candle
A candle is a boat
A boat is a god
Worn like a coat
A coat is a clock
A clock is a
game
A game is a
house
Built out of names
A name is a
wound
A wound is a dance
A dance is a
siren
Set off by
chance
Chance is an
ocean
An ocean is a
war
A war is a
woman
Opening a drawer
A drawer is
silence
Silence is a star
A star is a
poem
Composed for
Tamar.
BEFORE THERE WERE NUMBERS
Someone, sometime,
saw things,
and called them things,
just things,
flowers were flowers,
birds were birds,
people were people,
the sun rose
and set, the moon too,
the day was the day,
a cold day was cold,
a hot day hot,
and no one said things like
age is just a number
and no one looked their age,
or didn't,
and no one ever told anyone else
to act their age.
No one was ever late
for an appointment,
to the consternation of some
and the relief of others,
the trains always ran on time,
or not,
if there were trains, that is,
and as for a job, well that was something
you did because you wanted to,
or maybe had to,
stuff was produced, a service rendered,
it was all like art
for art's sake,
not a measure of value,
because no one asked themselves "how much?"
or thought about having more
or less
than anyone else,
there was no rich
or poor,
no jealousy
or shame,
and we saw in each other
the endless
the infinite
the present
until the counting began.
