My Answer To Her Letter Poem by RIC BASTASA

sorry
for not having answered your letter in understandable prose
as it will be hard for me to do so
i am trained
to think
in a language that must not be easily understood

this poetry
of stone
and trickles of rain
that must be hard, and stoic, and solid
and yet
must in time
be fluid
to an adversity

patience
trickles like drops of water from a high stone inside a cave
to meet
its destiny
down the river underneath the trees and rocks

what do you see?
you will see nothing except some words that meet you
hiding in their own meanings

some words are better seen
but must not be said
in utterances
the words die their own deaths

the meanings dissolve
in their very structures
like ice melting
water turning into vapor
and then
gone

you try to hold on to mist
you breathe
you live only in the memory