Why is it so hard
to write poems about
little groups of people?
When I reach for a metaphor
in a crowd
I see ants and swarms and forests;
When I search for an image
of you
I see green and starlight gray;
With four specific humans,
I see one's qualities
while I am unable to hear
the other silences;
I see too much and too little,
it is like driving back and forth
on a single block:
not the meditation
under the bodhi tree
nor the blurred impression
of a two hour train ride.
I don't know any fifty letter words
that form a whole sentence
or any five paragraph
books.
One day I may learn
the quality of attention
that might let me see
four faces in the palm
of my eye.
Roman Ryan 