Before the word, the light stood whole—
no edge to catch it, no angle
to prove it was there at all.
Then the word came, a shadow
thrown backward across the light,
trying to give an edge to what
threw no shadow of its own.
This is the failure built into naming:
the stone is cut so it can shine,
and cutting is a kind of loss—
a wound the light forgives
by entering it anyway.
So the word is not the thing.
It is the facet, not the fire.
Hold it still and it goes dark;
turn it, and for one breath
it remembers what it came from.
That breath is the poem.
Not the gem. The glimmer.
Northcoast Antiquarian 