NO IS THE FATHER OF YES

I'm tired of living for tomorrow's
headlines, tired of explanations,
tired of letters that begin "Dear
patriot…" or else "You may
already be the winner of…"
I'm near the point where nothing's
worth the time.
The causes
I believe in rarely win.
The men and women I admire
most are quietly ignored.
What's called "the infinite
progression of the negative" assumes
if I can count to minus seven,
I can count to seven
million, which means the bad
can certainly be worse, and that
the worse can certainly, et cetera…
Regardless, I believe
that something in me always was
and will be what I am.
I make each day my revolution.
Each revolution is a wheel's full
turn where nothing seems the same
while everything's no different.
I want to shout in every dialect
of silence that the world we dream
is what the world becomes,
and what the world's become
is there for anyone's re-dreaming.
Even the vanishing facts
demand a consecration: the uncolor
of champagne, the way the presidential
signatures remind me of a heartbeat's
dying scrawl on a monitor,
the languages that earlobes speak
when centered by enunciating pearls,
the sculpture of a limply belted
dress, the instant of bite
when grapes taste grape.
The range
of plus is no less infinite
than minus…
I learn that going
on means coming back
and looking hard at just one thing.
That rosebush, for example.
A single rose on that bush.
The whiteness of that rose.
A petal
of that whiteness.
The tip
of that petal.
The curl of that tip.
And just like that the rose
in all its whiteness blooms
within me like a dream so true
that I can taste it.
And I do.

by Samuel Hazo

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