George Bradley
GREAT STONE FACE
Perhaps something ought to be said about how deadpan
It
all
is, your experience as it is called, although
It seems you are its, really, rather than vice versa;
How for all your convulsive sobbing, laughter and pity,
It
never sheds a tear or tips a wink, never betrays
Even the merest f1jcker of amusement.
It's hard making your mind up without any hints,
And someone shou ld say something about how you feel
You are never gu ite getting the point, about how
Every time the bucket plunges deeper down the well
To haul up the subtle something glittering there,
Apause for thought arrives to cancel understanding,
Make nonsense of your efforts at an accurate account.
Ofcourse, it's just such uncertainty that makes us
What we are, just this tremendous reserve in things
That leads us to expect an object of our curiosity
And sets us sifting the air of spring afternoons
In search of whatever it cou ld be that brings
The astonishing crocus to life beneath our feet
And splashes forsythia about in fauvist strokes.
The distance it all keeps is what keeps you looking
(Through language, through landscape's irregular grammar)
For what it is that enthralls you so, what it is
That draws you forth to shiver like the flowering leaves,
And that will someday put you down, an exhausted thing,
Will cast you back upon some inscrutable conclusion,
Letting you drop out ofa vast indifference, out
Of some private dissatisfaction, releasing you one day
In an uneasy response all its own.
