I Was Reading A Poem - David Rutschman

[Lawrence Robinson]

I Was Reading A Poem

I was reading a poem by Ryōkan about a leaf, 
and how it showed the front and the back as it 
fell, and I wanted to call someone — my wife, 
my brother — to tell about the poem.
And I thought that maybe my telling about the 
poem was the front of the leaf and my silence 
about the poem was the back.
And then I thought that maybe my telling and 
my silence together were honestly just the front 
of the leaf, and that the back was something 
else, something I didn’t understand.
And then I thought that maybe everything I 
understood and everything I didn’t were both 
actually just the front of the leaf — so that the 
totality of my life was actually just the front of 
the leaf, just the one side — which would make 
the other side my death. . . .
Unless my life and death together were really 
still only the front of the leaf?
I had left the branch. I was falling.
I was loose now in the bright autumn air.

	- David Rutschman 
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