When I Taste, I Know Poem by Don Subba

Between one heart and another
There is no wall, no fence
Only a door
You keep leaving open

Words rise up
From the ache in the chest
Not from the tongue
Not from the asking

I tasted the fire
And forgot my name
What I feel inside
Won't fit inside a language

The more I point
The less I see
The more I speak
The less you hear

What I know
Won't stay in words
It trembles in silence
Then turns to dust

When I taste, I know
When I explain, I stray
When I taste, I know
You pull the world away

When I taste, I know
What words can never say
You blot the world from view
And still, I find my way

You live like a sign
On the road in me
You live, you live
Where I am meant to be

How could I draw
The shape of what you are
When your brightness
Makes me lose my own face

I stand in your presence
And slowly disappear
Yet somewhere in that vanishing
The truth becomes clear

The cup is empty
But the hand is full
The river teaches
By taking what it holds

And every step I lose
Leads me closer still
To something I can feel
But never name or hold

The more I point
The less I see
The more I speak
The less you hear

What I know
Won't stay in words
It trembles in silence
Then turns to dust

If I become
A single spark
Let me be spent
Inside your dark

If I become
A broken bowl
Let me hold
What I cannot hold

No map can keep
What love has crossed
I am most found
When I am lost

And if I disappear
Beyond what I can see
Perhaps the loss of me
Is where you lead me

When I taste, I know
When I explain, I stray
When I taste, I know
You pull the world away

When I taste, I know
What words can never say
You blot the world from view
And still, I find my way

You live like a sign
On the road in me
You live, you live
Where I am meant to be

When I taste, I know
When I taste, I know
Some things cannot be spoken
Only felt
Only known