There is a space somewhere between living and dying
where the soul breathes and, in breathing,
knows something about its life, though what it knows
is loam-like, salt-like, hard as iron ore
and tender as a kiss. In knowledge you find 
the longing that makes history, you find
the memory we have of what we've done
and who we've been, as if we were standing
with a precipice behind us, where the winds 
wrestle and the light beats down 
like the action of some bronze hero. 

Try and speak it, to form it into an utterance, 
and you find knowledge crumbling like earth
in your hands, though every word
is coated in it, as a tree is coated sometimes
in rain, or a child by their mother's arms. 

We speak knowledge to say it, but find the saying
without the speech, as though
our entire lives were premised on a taste
we hinted at sometimes in our better moods.

Then a light turns on in the mind, 
and a door closes; a tree branch wafts
in the late summer storm, and autumn
is felt in the air, subtly, like a drizzle
before an outpouring of blue. 

What does knowledge say? 
It lives in thanks like a shirt, 
it finds its belief more in bread
than thought, and the certainty it feels
is only wonder pricking the skull
like apricot sunlight, or an idea of grace.