Compass

Every single thing becomes a word / in a language that Someone or Something, night and day, / writes down in a never-ending scribble, / which is the history of the world, embracing / Rome, Carthage, you, me, everyone, / my life, which I do not understand, this anguish / of being enigma, accident, and puzzle, / and all the discordant languages of Babel. / Behind each name lies that which has no name. / Today I feel its nameless shadow tremble / in the blue clarity of the compass needle, / whose rule extends as far as the far seas, / something like a clock glimpsed in a dream / or a bird that stirs suddenly in its sleep.