When I Brush This Tear Away

Is this a tear on my cheeks? Drops
of something wonderful and wet –
heralding, perhaps, joy or grief?

Ophthalmologists tell its nature in
ways demystifying origins – denying
rustic logic of an ordinary explanation.

The reason is so cryingly simple, we
confuse ‘tears’ with ‘cry’; of course
they’re manifestly not the same.

Does the term basal tear excite your
sympathy, or reflex tear ignite a shower
of certain understanding? Nor with me.

I prefer to cry the way I always did, a rare
and simple gesture expressed in drops
that fall with freedom come what may.

And when I brush this tear away with
insightful fingertip the explanation
fades into another crying oblivion.
© 15 June 2007, I.D. Carswell