+ +

Something

about the nature of poetry and time

+ +

+ + +

I’m writing this now because I have to.Not in some “my soul yearns for this andI can’t help it" way, but in the way that thismoment is structured as such, that it iscrystallized this way, me writing this, and lateryou reading it, now for you, later for me,

and this tenuous connection mates meand you forever, combined with each other, twoelectrons momentarily entwined. Later,when I’m dead or far too famous for you, andyou’re in school, reading my words because it isrequired reading, I want you to remember this

connection we’ve always had, thisspider’s thread hanging between you and me.Which of us is the spider and which isthe fly still remains to be seen. Toeat, perchance to fly: all of that andmore. We can settle all of this later.

Yes, it is you I’m thinking of in your latertime: you specifically, not another. Thisis true for all $x$ such that $x > 0$ and $x$ is a real person, though it doesn’t bother meto write to a fictional figure or toa figment, maybe, of my imagination. This is

what you are right now, anyway, dear Reader, isit not? I’m talking about my now, of course, not later,which is your now. Later will be my now too,and maybe I’m ultimately writing to a future part of thisself: you could very well be me.In fact, you probably are me, some other version, and

I am you in the past, or what you could’ve been, andat the same time, this isn’t true. Everything is,and nothing isn’t. The difference between “you” and “me”is in name only. Maybe you’ll get this later,when you’re older, when I’m older, when all of thisis something we’ll look fondly back to,

because I do hope to meet you, although much later,and I hope your feeling is the same. All thistalk on me and you and you and me we’ll keep between us two.