Orphan

Orphan
What writes
Is there writing —
Word, sound, feeling
Object, appearance
Each with its name

Without the name
What is touched, what is known
Does the bird touch the air
Does it feel the branch

I sense breath —
Without a word for it — the wind —
What’s felt, what’s heard

Mind, memory — the name
For the repository
Of words, of accumulated thoughts

When the repository breaks
When the container disintegrates —
Words, like a handful of sand
Dissolve back into the ocean

Belonging to no hand
No container, no mind —
Yet people, hands and minds
Store, frame and claim
Their cognitions, their handfuls of sand
Their brushstrokes, their works

Are these words, these productions
Made by fingers, senses, breath
Body —

Were they not already there
Only appearing
Here —
Through some fingers, some eyes
Some mind —

Who — or what, then —
Could own these words
Can protect them
Like a child protected by parents
Like sand grains held in a hand
Like stars hung in the sky

Who can own
This line
This word —
This mind — this hand —
These sounds of the wind

What can contain, who can confine
This orphan —
Grain of sand