Reason Poem by Erik Lindner

1. Don't start doubting reason,
reason, reason, reason.
A fly walks from the rim
to the middle of the table-top
and back again, follows the edge
a few inches, re-enters the void
of the off-white, tries again
I don't know what, then flies away.


2. If I'm lost for words,

or his voice that blocks them rings out,
the child's hair is cut

before the spread of her tresses,

know then
that a hand

rarely pushes and stops.


2. The garden is between the road and the window
I saw through my dream by standing up in it

and still you shrug your shoulders
in the middle of what's embracing you

that cartwheel and that brick path
the chair which just stays put

how softly tram seven to hoboken
circles round the tables outside café athene

one tree is lighter than the other
on the ground the sunlight falls on your feet


4. A man is eating an apple in the park
and the trees bow down around him
the grass has run out of the treetrunks
it's jostling round his feet
the pond pushes plants to the bank
the man takes a bite of the apple
and lets it tip over on his tongue
sucks out the juice and crushes
the pond shrinks behind the shrubs
branches point upwards out of the trees
an animal climbs up a trunk
and leaps and sprints across the grass
along the green beside the street
back to the pond and past the shrubs
to a man who's folding his arms
on the grass in the distance in a park

Translation: Francis Jones