#1955 - begin with a word we cannot have known

 

 

1955

6.129

9.v.25

begin with a word we cannot have known

for a short history of philosophy as a long poem

 

 

how can it have been a word?

how it wasn’t a kickoff

 

tempting to think what must have been

because something must have

 

as in a start to be

there were questions

they won’t have called them that

 

we won’t know

 

what does an insect think?

how can we tell that?

 

there was what we now call the world

it had been and would

and we along

that’s first necessity

or if not first at least it was

 

all were afoot to forage

was it ‘we’?

who were they then?

 

imagine the vast of it

 

sticks become a fire

a stone rolls

webs overnight

 

the unknown still is

 

and why, one supposes, it was asked

why were we (?), whose idea (?)

ethics indicated here

 

it had been guessed what would be could

that was the way I guess

 

looking up at the sky

did you not always wish to see beyond

knowing that there was more

?