Joyce tree

the war was an excuse not to read him.
misunderstood even by his followers,
he is no longer a hero. he isn’t the master of language
but rather its victim, a misguided genius,
a novelist determined to be a tightrope walker.

draining in all his obsessions,
he gave synchronicity to words
the honor of devastation, a code broken
by continual ignition, the energy of roots
mixing with roots taking hold in the darkness.

today it is possible to read him in others’ works.
he is a tree that invades for a time, revealing
language’s secret sources.

(From Intemperie, 1995)

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