My Facebook friend from Santa-Fe, obsessed
With palindromes, out of the blue,
Messages me, and asks why no one else
Seems so stuck on perfect symmetry.
He’s one of those postgraduates, writing
A thesis on something like the role of demons
In Dostoevsky’s huge novel, Demons.
(Which, thankfully, I did read, back when I read,
Between high-school and whatever part of life
This is). I type out, that, it’s probably because
Sums are not set as a test on Erasmus—
Obviously Goggled in the long interim
Within, what could this really mean?—instant messages.
I thought mine was a good choice from a man
Who prides himself on not being culturally
Dumb, sent to a pentalingual postgraduate
Whose current obsession, palindromes, though
Irrelevant, is a symptom of a much larger
Yearning for balance in the order of language.
Language is our only key, he once said after
Three beers, just a collection of symbols
With conventions, attached significances.

*

Walking at night, I step beneath a weeping
Willow and remember, as I always remember,
The part after logic, about passing the world
Over in silence, at the end of Wittgenstein’s
Tractatus.

*

When I stop trying, I start
Growing faith
In rows.

*

On a clover, if alive, erupts a vast, pure evil; a fire volcano,
Responds Jeremy, more than a day-and-half
Later. We have a relationship that requires
No effort to sustain: We were brothers
Of the same monastery, in our
Middle-ages, and now, both wander
Around American cities. Both of us,
We panic in a pew, but can’t help
Seeking God in academic
Books. After work, I find six trash-cans
Full of flowers I can’t name correctly,
And stand for seven minutes without breaking
Silence. The energy they gave me has no meaning.
I produce no discourse from this
Encounter. In the minutes that follow
I, for the first time, realize, each relationship
Contains an Internet message, reaching out
Across dark cables, every bold step
Forward, nothing ever known
Of God or color. Stop!
Murder us not, tonsured rumpots!

*

In words, alas, drown I.
When I stop trying,
Rain falls.

-Zachary Johnson