Without Explanation

 

An explanation is the least satisfactory
of all truths.
It arrives forlornly like the folded
sheet of paper on the door map with its 
neat and deadly print.  A bill perhaps,
a clarifying letter, a rejection.

​

An explanation is that empty blueprint
of the thing we already guessed at,
it is the outline of the chair
that the craftsman made,
worthless beside the bold and finished seat.

​

Between tears and roses and
winter's spilling waterfalls
there is no space to explain:
how can you ever capture the laughter of a child 
within any meaningful explanation?
My son fell about laughing because the ball
bounced on the light and hit his daddy 
on the head.

​

And why not?

​

Sunlight on skin, the wind
that blows away the debris of 
yesterday, all of it wandering free,
unexplained, unquantified.
There is nothing worth adding.
The wind does not carry away your
heart less strongly for ever 
knowing why.

​

Explain to me how we laughed 
together in a park in Munich a decade ago,
tell me how it was her laughter set the
whole world to vibrant song about me.
Tell me how even now I can smell
the crocuses beside the path we walked
as though they are here before me.

​

Explain to me why I love the Alps,
why I hate captivity.
But as you do so, 
know that I have already stopped listening.
My mind is already travelling, racing away 
from the snare of that tiresome and disappointing explanation...

​

And into the open arms of a remembered day:
staring into bright sunlight
filtering through the trees, a morning when
spring had come again and life
thrilled through the cascading light.
Hand in hand we walked.
Proud winter had departed,
and playful spring ran about
the gardens teasing the 
first ripening buds.

​

Life, unexplained, was singing once more.

​

​

DG