Long ago, I was wounded. I learned to exist, in reaction, out of touch with the world: I'll tell you what I meant to be- a device that listened. Not inert: still. A piece of wood. A stone.

Why should I tire myself, debating, arguing? Those people breathing in the other beds could hardly follow, being uncontrollable like any dream- Through the blinds, I watched the moon in the night sky, shrinking and swelling-

I was born to a vocation: to bear witness to the great mysteries. Now that I've seen both birth and death, I know to the dark nature these are proofs, not mysteries-

Note: The opening poem From Gluck's latest volume of poems, "Ararat" - the book that I am carrying around this week in my overcoat, to read in the silvers of found time.