Sometmes-things (the poem)

Sometimes-things, they aren’t
drawn clearly enough. Sometimes-things aren’t
meant to stand out. Black sits on black,
then it moves around to white. Come lie back
down with me here, I’ll tell you about them.
They’re most times things, but sometimes I see them
and they feel much closer to something living.
It’s not that they speak or move, it’s something
in the way they lie so still but are still shaking
within. Are you shaking now too? No it’s not shaking,
it’s a hum. A string continues to play its song,
much later than, long after, we’ve stopped listening. Long
after we’ve stopped. Can they be, when I know they’re not?
I can’t see them seeing me or being, and they’re not
like me. They’re more and they’re not, but it’s just then,
when they are just things to me. It’s then--
are you still listening-- sometimes
I know I disappoint myself by thinking it. Sometimes
I know they mean to have more meaning than I can find
in them. In the blank somewhere spaces where I lag behind
them, sometimes I crave to catch up. The wind can
make such a pretty knocking sound if the tree’s hands
will play along. No don’t get up. I’m almost done.
I’m trying to tell you I want to be that someone
who’s willing to live sometimes like them, and when
not, not frightened of some place where I’ll lie down by them.