[But isn’t midnight intermittent]

But isn’t midnight intermittent
Or was that just a whispered nine
A snap of blown light low against the flank of a cow
A likeness of something numberless that only I not knowing the sound
            might know
It may have been howled by a circling dog being chastised — threatened —
            by multiples of itself in pursuit of the consolation of knowing that
            everything is real
It was real
I don’t mean midnight — despite horizon, nipple, and fissure
I don’t mean
And yet I do — mean, I mean
A cowering animal woven real
            flickers
                        please pull over
                                    Kierkegaard
Kierkegaard says knowledge precedes every act but surely there are acts that
are not preceded by knowledge. Repetitions pass at the door from summer
to winter. Some slowly. Some quickly. Total strangers. Never saw them
before. Can’t picture them now. Umbrellas — strange totalities — upheld,
wheeling.

Copyright Credit: Lyn Hejinian, “[But isn’t midnight intermittent...]” from The Book of a Thousand Eyes. Copyright © 2012 by Lyn Hejinian. Reprinted by permission of Omnidawn Publishing.
Source: The Book of a Thousand Eyes (Omnidawn Publishing, 2012)