It will be quieter than
before Adam, quieter
than before the long
exhalation of breath
of the dying emperor
in the distant kingdom.
White sand. White sand
and a light breeze rustling.
A few skinny palms
scrawling across the sky.
A companionable horizon.
I’ll have one book—
Don’t ask the old question.
It doesn’t matter which.
I’ll be satisfied to read
and reread the same words
until the plain sense disappears
and the letters unchain themselves
from the words, and the words
rearrange themselves
for my pleasure alone.
Barry Seiler has published four books of poetry. He appears in the recent anthology New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust. He has received fellowships from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. He was named Distinguished Artist in Poetry by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. He lives in a small town in the Catskills, with the cats Homer and Milton.