Unknown

 

Turning out the light I begin wondering about ‘a poem of the unknown’. Turn it back on and write ‘a poem of the unknown’ in my notebook, no poem as such forthcoming, to visit next morning. Extinguishing the light again, I go into deep sleep, there to dream unknown experiences. Dream of opening night of a play where I’m a lead part but have not learnt my lines. Made worse by the realisation I’m also in another play showing at the same time in another part of town, script unlearnt. Wake with relief in the morning, sunny January and blessedly cool, with the prospect of googling ‘a poem of the unknown’. Responds with poems about the unknown soldier, author unknown (anonymous), lines in search of an author’s name, Auden’s ‘The Unknown Citizen’, study notes explaining what ‘The Unknown Citizen’ is about. Ask myself, do notes sum up a poem? Are they help or hindrance? Is anything left to the imagination? Are notes just a way of getting through the exam? Decide that the questions answer themselves in the negative. Leave the whole matter alone. Reflect that everything we collect and put around us are knowns. Note how knowns is a lovely half-rhyme with nouns. Exist as knowns in the sense of being expressions and objects redolent of our knowing. Surrounding ourselves with unknowns is not a common pastime. Or is it? Consider, meanwhile, that we are anyway surrounded with unknowns all the time. Starting with the universe itself, which anyway is multiverses, a subject for multiverse poetry. Continuing in real time with the smooth indeed sublime workings of our own bodies, which hurt and heal in ways unknown to the actual bearer. Marvel at doctors who seem to know, dictating into their voiceboxes with pharmacy fluency and medical Latin. Walking along to the shops for morning coffee, I ponder unknown stories behind a hundred passing doorways. Wonder at the causes of their arguments, unknown even to themselves. Meditate on love, springing unknown to resolve the sorriest mess. Drink coffee and think of science for a moment, last word on the known, until replaced by the previously unknown. Brood temporarily over history, the unknowns buried out of sight in a field, the knowns whose grievous biographies sell better than any poetry. Make mental notes, how past may be unknowable as the future. Wrestle with poetry, now that we mention it, the sweetness at the base of the glass, as its words speak with seeming dogmatism of things they admit they know only so much. Consuming the end of the croissant, all I have are crumbs for my ‘poem of the unknown’, a flower without a name here, a thought without a predicate there, a whole day in which to make up any script I like about the unknown.