Word
at the First
Didn’t I do this once already? I’m pretty
positive I did this once already. I mean: produce a bit
for Sarki for it to go up in front of what is thereafter to
be
found in a book by Sarki.
Fine.
Swell.
I am doing it again. Not because it frightens
me to say no to Sarki but because it frightens me for
me to fail—asked or not asked—to speak. So to speak
for
Sarki comes to speaking for speaking’s sake.
Which is for being’s sake.
It’s a test.
It’s proof.
All being is. Despite irritating injunctions to
the
contrary.
Sarki lives and is therefore a poet. Perhaps you
don’t understand this. But when there comes to you a
time of understanding this, take out Sarki’s verses
and
look again at their proof of being.
The test he passed?
Speech—in the manner of almost truth, a
command Sarki could not, save if a suicide, elude.
You
will never find more in a man.
But are you looking?
I mean: for more in anybody?
— G O R D O N
L I S H