Beyond Ascription Poem by Joan Woodbridge

how it began is unclear
innocence and earnestness
the impossible 'Why? '

what meaning can be ascribed to such an outlier?
(anything said post hoc must be an easy fabrication)

it meant only what it meant
which is not to say it meant nothing-

an Icarus penchant for flight
the concomitant terror of falling
crashing...
and in the end
hahava*
the cold hell of my frozen voice.

to say too little demeans
to say too much dishonors
yet I mean to honor it still

even the sense of ending
mysteriously implicit
in its astonishing beginning

*One of the cold hells of Tibetan Buddhism, 'where the mouth is frozen and one can only groan; ...'