Rosetta

Oh Rosetta, little rose, stone
of my multilingual heart:
Do you still think that to say something over and over
is to make it true?

The New Year begins to write itself
in anger and forgiveness, mark after mark
in the soft clay of love and friendship:
the intelligibility depends on the hardening.

Litera scripta manet: each letter, being written,
manhandles the next. In the elevator I count the floors
in five different languages, still hoping
for a 'A' from teachers twenty years dead.

The sound of rain thins to a whisper.
September is the pivot of hope and
the hinge of nativity: it is the kneading trough
of the old year. We lie down naked

in the clay, and the rain surges
as it drums on wart and callus;
on the roof; on the oak leaves
toughened by a long summer.


In response to this Morning Porch post.