Lay open vestibule of our greatest minds,
Upon the lap of the only man in a quarter century
To open thy door, and see thy cataract.
The strophe and antistrophe
Which haven’t a soul
To espouse Grecian category’s empty words;
No, but to me you mean the top and bottom
Of those flawless chemicals of geometry;
A cataract, just like the Great Falls of Buffalo.
Am I the only man to see it for a quarter century?—
How so austere at first
It dances around my eyes,
The ugly ink and plain words.
Yet, it is perfect in meaning.
How does a man explain poetry
To those who never drink from its mousse?
It merely tells us what rests beyond all artifice
Into the meaning of these things
We might never take a passing glance.
Waterfalls might have a certain chemical,
Something between Geometry and Stars,
But do those chemicals have meaning?
Or, does the meaning create the chemicals?
A man who feels truth is very deceived,
Yet, if one could see the pure feeling of Niagara Falls
That my sinful self could not appreciate…
I will remember the feeling later, at a second glance
In a poem nobody has read for over twenty years.
And that is why I know there is sin.
That is why I know there is such foulness.
I can know the feeling then and now
Both the same, but then I would not chew upon it.
Today, without beholding what my eyes had once seen,
I can see it once again, and in that sight,
Understand what sin truly was.
A lie we tell ourselves to spoil what is good and right before our eyes.
Then, later, one meditates on it from afar,
Without the beauty before flesh’s eyes.
B. K. Neifert 