Definitions
after Spinoza
I.
That which is self causes
the mouth to turn in us
I mean that essence
of landscape when the interior
yawns existence, that nature
baked hard as fossils
our diffusion only conceivable if you spread
yourself into it, like light
into ground, into water this reflection
as existent as your lily pad hands.
II.
A thing is called infinite
after dark & kind when limited
by edge, another
space of the same nature
(if there is a thought
to be weighed, it’s in your hands,
your sleepy, Dutch eyes)
for instance, a body is called
death when it is swung wide open
and finite because we always conceive
when we are least expecting, when
our eyes wander
the landscape of another
greater body. So, too, a thought
(I see you standing there,
back against the fire)
is limited by another thought, but a body
even his even yours
is not limited by thought
nor a thought by body
III.
By substance I mean that
climbing angling animal
which is wild in itself, pure
momentum and caused
through the impulse
of impulse
and conceived through
a nest of boxes
geological shelves here
was this rock, this hand this
bright burning sun
in other words, we are among other things
a conception
and can be formed independently
of any other conception
IV.
By attribute I mean the feature
without which a bird is not
a bird, is a crocodile, a carousel
red top spun on a white plastic table
that which the intellect perceives
by virtue of mental trampoline,
bouncing into idea as a consequence
of grace, my feet in your hands
my body thrown as if
constituting essential substance
V.
By mode I mean there are many rooms
in this house, and we dress them
differently; the modifications
of substance feeling a way
the slow crawl of being genealogy pitched
on its hind legs a calf unfolding
and you, a philosopher loafing in the grass
until it stands an intelligence
conceived through something
more itself
than itself.
VI.
By God I mean our symbols
exhausted you say
a being that is
absolutely infinite that is
a recursion of meaningful geometry
a substance of infinite attributes
we regard like an infant regarding
its mysterious watery hand
of which each digit expresses
an extension, a greeting
(hello, here, please)
eternal and infinite essentiality
the striving manifest
explanation—
I say absolutely infinite
considering how small the eye
of any mind
not infinite after its kind
and now
for a thing infinite only after
you raze it raising
its kind, infinite attributes
a splintered mirror we call God—
this may be denied
but the wide eyes of your voice climb
a ladder of formal certitude:
the absolutely infinite contains
in its essence whatever
expresses reality and involves no
negation
VII.
That thing is called free
when it pivots
both light and
its refraction, existing solely
by virtue of virtue
the necessity of likeness, likening
this analogy to one’s
own reflected nature
like a dancing fish,
by which action is determined
currently—
on the other hand that thing
is scaled necessary,
or rather constrained which clocks
its choreography in rivers
determined by something
like abandoned nets
external to the flopping fish
catching itself in a fixed and definite
hook we call
method of existence or action
VIII.
By eternity I mean where
might you go and when
might you return
existence suspended like
a photograph that never fails
to regard itself, though
in reality, everything goes on
around the frame
forming and reforming today
Dutch tomorrow something else insofar as
geography is conceived
as necessarily meaningful
to follow in your
light, wooden shoe steps
solely from the definitions
we carve
in the burning walls of oblivion
of that which is wrested from
eternal explanation
existence of this kind
extension into world
(wrangling a tea pot, felling a spider)
conceived as an eternal stop-gap
call it truth like the dissolution
of idea, the essence of a thing—
the photograph, and the child
dancing around it
therefore cannot be explained by
the writing on the wall, whatever
means of continuance we establish
for ourselves, or time though continuance
(like thought) may be conceived without
(you know) a beginning or an end.
I built this poem out of Spinoza’s definitions in his Ethics, integrating his language into the poem, sometimes trading lines with him, sometimes weaving his language into mine, or mine into his.
