The Stopping By The Mountainside Poem by RIC BASTASA

i am taking more time
going over it
and i probably will not
understand
what you are really trying
to tell me,
as you
have chosen the words
as carefully as
grains for seeding
in such a way that i
am at a loss at
what to say
to interpret
the images of your language

some are hazy as fog
and i am the driver of the
car that stops
for a while
so i may not fall upon a
cliff
off-road
exhausted

i get out of the car
and wait for the fog to go
and vanish
until the hills appear
as they are
and not as something else
as sister of
mist or
cloth of nakedness

yes, the things as they are
my language are no longer hands
no longer eyes even

there is no word to match
what beauty lies before
me
what truth that is never said
but this
time only felt
and unseen
because the eyes
are open.