This poem is taken from PN Review 87, Volume 19 Number 1, September - October 1992.

Holà

C.H. Sisson

HOLÀ

Words do not hold the thing they say:
Say as you will, the thing escapes
Loose upon air, or in the shapes
Which struggle still before the eyes.
Hola will run upon its way
And never catch up with its prize.


ESPERANCE

Meaning is what is lacking. Size
And shape are nothing in this room
Where there is neither light nor dark.
The usual servitude of eyes
Condemned to see the world in bloom
Is lifted, and it leaves no mark.

'Was someone once' is all there is
Yet cannot be because it was,
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