When the Enemy Is Illiterate

Thus you will be obedient not to speech alone,
which is only the crude horizon on which the mighty castle
was put to the torch and consumed
in a paralysis of over-exuberant, yet too solemn light.
Uncontending, you must yield intention so fully
that the template behind speech will sound
like a resplendent gong
above the aggrieved yet expectant face—its
closed radiance as the New Year confetti piles up
on your shoulders.

Finally, make yourself the site of purposeful failure
to decipher harm in the frenzied economy
of any message. Remember virtue’s unspoken strategy—
that we are put on earth as seriously as dreams,
as night and silence. The first star of the year
is always over our shoulders.
Take the splendid never-again path
which allows each clamped beak to divine
its surround of feathers.
Oh glad and fearful signs of bravest welcome.