The Man with the Blue Guitar XII

Tom-tom, c’est moi. The blue guitar

And I are one. The orchestra

Fills the high hall with shuffling men

High as the hall. The whirling noise

Of a multitude dwindles, all said.

To his breath that lies awake at night.

I know that timid breathing. Where

Do I begin and end? And where.

As I strum the thing, do I pick up

That which momentously declares

Itself not to be I and yet

Must be. It could be nothing else.