alchemew

Being of Three Minds
Howard Nemerov

I
Between identity and difference
Logicians say that likeness lies; it lies,
They say, because it can do nothing else
On a ground that's nothing but its boundaries,
Distinguishing the different from the same
By puffing out the nothing of a name.

II
What great magician could have cast the spell
That broke the stump of Babel from the sky
And raised Jerusalem the Golden high
On mortgage money from the vaults of Hell?

Some spellers say it was the little i
That differences deify and defy.

everything’s lapsed and has fallen apart
if only I could be me, and let you be you
ever since you took the sword from my heart
I suppose killing who I was was an unwise thing for you to do

I do not know how to behave
out of the scope of your example
you took the cradle and gave me the grave
and your dictum led fate to where we both ambled

why do the names you threw at my feet
entice me to lift them and wear them as mine
while you stole my traits, what made me complete
and move onto greener pastures you’d find

as much as I cared, what I got in return
did not match, not Below nor Above
of all our experiments what I most learned
is that only I was truly in love