With Pins and String

it is instructive to listen to him warming himself up
the delightful deceit of fables
their superfluity of talking
close, naked, natural

we can thus say every thing
we can say about anything
thought is difficult to imagine
an angel intervenes with flaming sword

when he spoke he was apt to be
quarreling about priority of discovery
in his role as sage, he did not say
wordless is alone

you are to respect the experiment
you may reproduce with pins and string
when not otherwise oriented
1728, 1719, 1726, 1802

by definition aye
am not repeatable
against the vacant and pensive moods
come upon you

we may note the word quantity
though not how measured
it is exactly that grave
(in 1818 she would publish)

his surprising answer
meter is a kind of anesthetic
as a disciplined hermetic priesthood
notam in calculandum facultate

measurers of circumference
sounders of depths
the belief that were there plain words
might unite truly

all language reeks of artifice
words refuse to mean what they ought
insidious is the belief
that it could be any other way