[W T Clark]

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& if my God was the Blank & not the Flood
or the whirlwind which would arrogantly preen
in front of Job & brag at being God,
if God was the Blank that made the world so clean

then I was crouched inside the carapace
of God made from the rubbed-out world. What a gift!
I thought, knees to chest on an outcrop, face
to face with the eager water — like a thief

surrounded by a pack of guard dogs — He
had blossomed round me in His nothingrose
of silence that I may have the privilege
to name again all of His blanknesses.


I stood up in the dark & said a word
& it climbed hands out from my mouth to beat
its way through God: flying like a blind bird.
& I was there to let the noonelight speak:

to pass my hands through the dust like a clock:
to chain each undrowned thing to its ticking name,
each name as blind to the beast that I had locked
it to as I: blind: therefore free from blame.
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