Beverly Dahlen

from A Reading 11-17


language language it is all made of language. nothing sees it any other way. words and things. “a space beyond words and it is filled with things.” (73)


somehow the writer was a different person writing. the writer did not look like her writing. she may have been fair or dark but that did not perhaps enter her writing. now perhaps there were persons one knew first and then knew their writing later. then there was another person. the person of the writing.

but of course there was the reading also. first one would have been a reader. then one was helpless. then one knew nothing but the writing. as the reader one knew nothing but the writing. then the person disappears. then, and then the writing is all. all there is. then there is nothing but reader, reader of the writing. then we can only wonder at the person who might have been, the someone who was there, now gone, disappeared long ago behind the writing. there, perhaps, once, but that was long ago. the writer may now be gone, dead perhaps. in any case, not there. (86)