Expressing the Ineffable

Poetry expresses what is beyond expression. I came to believe this two weeks ago, after encountering a poem called The Thought in a creative writing class. I interpret the poem as a depiction of the meditative state. I believe the poem is communicating something entirely uncommunicable: the moment in meditation when the meditator becomes aware of a thought arising, and allows it to pass.

_______________________________________________

The Thought 

We breathe in, we do not think
of it. We walk and we speak 

beneath the blue-flowering trees
and do not think. We breathe. 

We cross the stone bridge
above a fisherman in a skiff. 

We pass the blind man, the legless man
and the woman who sings of a coming storm. 

We sit by the river in the rising wind,
we raise the crazed cup to our lips 

and do not think,
here where the light does not differ from dark, 

here where pages tumble to the floor,
here in the lake of ink, the stain of ink 

where we fashion a calendar from a wall.
Invisible lake, unreachable shore. 

Exhale and do not think.
Close their eyes a final time close our eyes.

from Company of Moths
by Michael Palmer
New Directions: 2005