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Poem

By Dee Bucknell

He wore green fatigues in the army
  now he just wears the shirt
  on which he's pinned a button
  telling who he is and why

And he is more than one poet
He is an old man perpetually
  writing a poem
and he is a war veteran perpetually
  writing a poem
  about a war veteran
  whose every third thought is death

And his eye fixes itself
  on every stray person or thing
  and waits for it to move
  thereby giving some small clue to existence

And he waits gently
  for it to reveal itself
  or himself or herself
  then the hunt begins

And he picks up every suspicious object
  examining minute details
  thinking it may be alive
  and shakes it to speak

And he has come back from the war
  with his dark hair and black eyes
  carrying his big black book of questions

And he speaks of himself and
  he speaks of the dead
And he has a tongue to say it with
  knowing not many can understanding

And he is mad and sees
  Death's Darkness
And is hurt and hears
  Death's Silence
  of which nobody speaks

And he isn't waiting for the
  promised light to shine
For he is his own ecstatic illumination
And he is our only ecstatic illumination
For he has come at the end
  of the world
  to save it.

      --Dee Bucknell