Underside

I imagine the underside of the English language,
a garbaged, mottled dream-tangle
like the reverse side of a tapestry
where each carefully tied thread
runs wild in a course of its own,
where every color is let loose
in a scribbled, shaggy riot of un-being--
the dictionary lists clear words, sounds marked
and numbered, described and dated, but one summer
I stood in the winter-cold of a cave’s dark
and shone my flashlight up
to see a straggle of root dangling
from the roof, knowing then
how the whole forest above me
was anchored in darkness, its grammar rooted
in what falls away, my understanding
leaping into every word to find it bottomless.