3.  The Strange Lostness Gate

I waited to start telling this until I was ready. But I will never be ready and never was.
Even in the middle you have to start.

Read it and you wrote it; what you read is what I get.
That is how you write the history of the world.

 *

I have a certain disorder; the meter of time is distorted through the stone corridors of my ancient habitation.

Test it with me: shout echo near the entrance; I’ll wait in this chamber with the broken pots.
By the time your sound reaches me, a thousand years will have passed.

 *

The bridge was in imminent danger of fire and collapse.

They rushed to park a fire engine under it at the ready.
They collected funds and built a hospital alongside it for the victims.

Other events took place there in the years they waited: births, fainting tourists, elective operations.
But a clean ward was kept for any struck by debris, and any who fell.

Some who were afraid to ascend the bridge disguised themselves as nurses and orderlies to access the upper floors.
They stood with their mouths near the windows, fingering ephemeral notes onto the fogged glass.

I’ve told you before I detest the whimsical.
You can be assured what I’m writing is all the absolute truth.

 *

These are the things that have no measure: that are not absorbed inside the material but pass through, that are absorbed and enter but exist as if in infinite space, the things that exist in space but are independent of it, the inexplicable holes in the fabric.

These are the things that have no measure: the outer facet, the initial fruit, the mutual seeing, the kindness of weaning, the study of Torah.

These are the measures that have no thing: the ruin’s perimeter wall, one from a missing series, the space inside the mirror, the good intention, the study of Torah.

These are the things that have no measure: the donated food, the consecrated fruit, the devoted journey, the acts of kindness, the study of Torah.

 *

He took the tools I brought and began to measure. I kept the notepad.

He reminded me to account for the thickness of walls and gates.

I assured him I would do it and he laughed at me.

He pointed at the thinness of my paper.