Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well then where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven, godlike,
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths - and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at the bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.
Okay, think we're done with the poems about death, at least for a little while. I wanted to share this one because I honestly don't know what to make of it--I'd love to hear your thoughts or observations about what's going on here. That first long sentence (Others taunt me with having knelt ... cloud puffs.) especially baffles me, as it's such a weird thing for anyone to taunt someone over. "Lisa always leans down over wells from the wrong direction so the sunglare keeps her from seeing past the surface of the water--what a loser!" Not exactly the stuff of after school specials.