knowing before words

before the first adjective touches anything

before the first adjective touches anything,
before the mind, careful and slightly afraid,
lifts its small lanterns into the dark,
there is a knowing
so near
it has no distance.

it does not go out to collect the world.
it does not return with hands full of proof.
it is being
before being turns and names itself,
whole without explanation,
as flame is wholly flame
while the word fire still sleeps,
as dawn rises, quietly certain,
before night releases the morning.

in you it is older than memory,
a seeing without ornament,
a tenderness without a story,
here,
unargued.

before a face becomes beautiful,
it is simply here.
before sorrow learns its heaviness,
it is simply moving.
before love becomes too much,
it is simply love,
vast and unmeasured,
refusing the scale.

what is
knows without a name.

then language arrives,
brightly dressed and quick tongued,
bringing its verdicts,
its needle and seam,
and the old knowing does not contend.

it lets the garments flutter.
it lets the names settle, then loosen,
and fall away in their own time,
like dust turning slowly
in a shaft of light.

it remains
what cannot be improved,
what does not ask permission,
what does not require the world
to be described
in order to be.

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