Rachel Blau DuPlessis, from VERSE

from the new issue of Verse (Volume 26, Numbers 1-3)

Rachel Blau DuPlessis

from DRAFT 87: TRACE ELEMENTS

All serifs are seraphim: such is faith in the letter.
Such is the force of the word.
The faith is touching.
In every alphabet
in every technology of memory—
knots, rocks, dots, rhymes,
codes, rites,
monuments and books—
in that shockingly endless tower built
of the balances and loops of wire
ceramic shards set in cement, and mirrors, too,
extendable yet poised in mutual
enjambment—
oh.
There is no verb in this sentence.

The verb is diffuse
it is the feeling of Being
and Reflecting
inside the substance of language
and of time,
making the poem “embodied, embedded,
and extended mind.”