On the Ground

When the collie saw the child

break from the crowd,

he gave chase, and since they both

were border-crossers,

they left this world.

We were then made of—

affronted by—silence.

The train passed Poste 5, Paris,

late arrival, no luck, no

enlarging commentary

magnified in any glass.

“The ineffable

is everywhere in language”

the speaker had said

in the huge hall where

I sat amongst coughers,

students, in the late

February of that year,

at the end of a sinuous

inquiry on sense and sound—

“and very close to the ground,” he’d said.

Like mist risen above

the feet of animals

in a far field north of here.