chains

what have I been paying attention to 

that words won't come together now

like grade school children in a line

holding hands so that none of them 

get lost, or left behind.

Reading Aristotle's Politics

I am reading Aristotle’s Politics

at my kitchen table

with the morning light

spilling across my coffee.

I imagine the great philosopher

also at his kitchen table,

with a hard loaf of bread

and perhaps some olive oil,

considering whether there are

seven types of courts, or perhaps eight.

Light from the same sun

reflects off of the oil in its shallow saucer

and he pauses his logical progress

to think of Plato, some years gone.

This is not in the pages I am reading,

not directly, at least.

but my mind has been running

down the footpaths he first walked

and have since been trod by kings and monks

and all manner of forgotten readers.

By this miracle of written word

I am more inside his ordered psyche

than if he were sitting across from me

And asking me to pass the salt.

**

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