I like it here

It's a clear cut

It's a work place

It's my own personal secular temple

I think

I work

intensely

with things

not many would grasp the benefit of;

something I began

almost sixty years ago

but I have all the time I need

to build a great, resounding clarity

I like it here

It's like a military service;

a straight, barren discipline:

a bed for the night;

a computer, a desk,

a microphone, recording machines, memory cards

for the day

and a couple of bicycles

for the shape of my body,

for my strength, my endurance,

and the diligence of my thoughts

plus a calendar for the passage of days

I close the door, and it is closed

I open the door, and it is open

The windows are transparent,

and it's either day or night outside,

or any of their manifold stages

I like it here

I like the routine

which bores straight into the core

of my elusive self,

elusiveness after elusiveness

or is it a great, palpable materiality

behind this veil of sonorities, voices, glances, murmurs

lost across these pages, thousands of them,

yes, years and decades

and bodies with familiar names attached?

I like it here,

I allow myself this,

in spite of the loneliness I cause

during a duration of unknown length

I like the hardcore determination

that my uncanny investigative cool reveals;

I like these notebooks stacked away;

now meeting the light of day

and my voice,

spelling out my written account

in someone's hand that was and wasn't mine

I like it here,

day after day

week upon week

I have found something

that is worth this long singular moment

of loneliness,

which is an honour I do myself;

a duty unto myself and all that I described,

outweighing the distance to someone,

to some ones,

that this formidable work demands,

no matter how long the completion

of this duty may take,

or where, if anywhere, it will take me

I like it here

I or it dwells at the bottom of all this,

and I have been allowed

to touch upon who or what I may find;

to look into the eyes of me,

which may well be the eyes of it,

and perhaps catch a glimpse,

silent as one thought that dissolves

into another

Clarities are cast between I and I;

bridges of glass and light

I like it here