The empty face
of the notebook
is gradually disrupted
by letters, words, sentences
and that elusive ghost of meaning,
dancing like first light
across the farthest islets on the horizon
The faintness and vaporizing property
of the meaning
of spoken and written
is obvious
when engaging the sounds and signs
of a foreign language
Without that magic connotation,
the spoken withdraws
into rhythm and melody; pattern
- while the written becomes ornamental,
again all pattern,
like the imageless walls and ceilings
of the mosques of Shiraz and Zahedan
Likewise,
after the regular half-hour
of the aural phase
of a migraine incident,
familiar words,
and even names of daughters and sons,
horses and cats and towns,
slip into that foreign language
realm
of visual and acoustic patterns,
for a while,
until they start rolling back in,
like the tide,
as familiar as ever,
after an hour or a half
Similarly,
the closest and most familiar
may turn on you
in the ghostly shapes
of malicious strangers,
in an attack of serious anxiety,
when everything
becomes stripped bare
of all that one has become accustomed to,
revealing the suchness of existence;
not a pretty sight