The First Step In The Journey Is

I Start Off But I Don't Know Where I'm Going; I Try This Avenue And That Avenue, That Turns Out To Be A Dead End, This Is A Dead End, And So On. The Search Takes A Long Time And I Have To Back-track Often.

Kiss The Mouth Which Tells You, Here, Here Is The World. This Mouth. This Laughter. These Temple Bones.

I Love To Go Out In Late September Among The Fat, Overripe, Icy, Black Blackberries To Eat Blackberries For Breakfast, The Stalks Very Prickly, A Penalty They Earn For Knowing The Black Art Of Blackberry-making; And As I Stand Among Them Lifting The Stalks To My Mouth, The Ripest Berries Fall Almost Unbidden To My Tongue, As Words Sometimes Do, Certain Peculiar Words Like Strengths Or Squinched, Many-lettered, One-syllabled Lumps, Which I Squeeze, Squinch Open, And Splurge Well In The Silent, Startled, Icy, Black Language Of Blackberry - Eating In Late September.

Perhaps Poetry Will Be The Canary In The Mine-shaft Warning Us Of What's To Come.

The Bud Stands For All Things, Even For Those Things That Don't Flower