Aber wozu dann dieses komplizierte Ding?

--Wittgenstein

   "But what then is
   the point of the
   complicated thing?"
   I have been given
   a stranger nerve
   and tendons
   that carry
   sweeps of terror
   through me
   to a gland
   where the fool gods
   made me quarry
   to the heart's solemities
   folded like pins in my flesh.
   For as I drove
   to an island
   where I'd been given haven
   I passed a village
   and could not go
   beyond it
   and swerved off in the sun
   and glare
   my body and its acrobatic
   breath
   contorted like wrens
   accosted
   by a whirlwind.
   I stood,
   my hands locked together
   and thought of ways
   death might come: an aboriginal
   wave, a refusal
   of light,
   a freezing shadow.
   This morning I
   walked to a small cliff
   gnawed
   by the sea
   to slate ravines
   and pools
   of shells and weed
   where lichen
   and disemboweled
   husks of sea urchin
   lay on
   the copper field
   of the bay.
   On the sun's nape
   I laid my hands
   and felt
   my skin shift
   its hold
   on gravity
   letting down
   upon me
   a chaplet
   of lupin
   and endless waters
   that can
   complete nothing
   but render
   stable
   the infinite mountains
   that rise up beneath
   the wake of the swans.