Vocabulary (for Nick)

I could not express it in language.
It was not amenable to the usual
combinations of sounds:
sibilants, fricatives, vowels.

Fears welled up in me
bearing no trace of their origin.
How could I stand my ground ?

I could not put it in a letter.
You did not have the vocabulary.
We had not made a proper
allocation of meaning.

It was not possible
to meet the enemy face to face
to parlay or arrange
for hand to hand combat
between appointed champions.

I can see your disbelieving face
at three thousand miles.
You are looking out of the window.
Walking the dog. I am probably
talking to your answering machine.

Things fail, age, decay,
change into other things,
slip through our fingers,
elude our grasp.
How much more so people.

Your ears are turned away from me.
Nothing I say can penetrate.
Your understanding has acquired
an exaggerated significance.

				Clapham, 1991

	John Rule, 2004
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