Knowledge

I would like to state
as precisely as possible
what I don't know;
but because it would take many books
and several lifetimes
to get it down, I settle for the easy questions:
Am I living, or dying?
What makes for the difference?

There are times, though,
when questions are not enough;
when all I am left with is a word, or words--
electricity, cosmos, raincoat--
to hang on to, like so many stars:
burning, living, and dying in the dark
unknowable space

that surrounds them



-amr--