Impressed

The impression on the wax remains
Though the impressor has gone,
Disappeared, just as the wax is cooled,
Just as the warmth that filled the dripping cere
Is dispersed into the atmosphere.

The impression remains.

But what is this impression,
This phenomenon of the impression
That is neither the impressor
Nor the thing impressed,
But just that, an impression,

Like the poem
That is neither its meaning nor its sound
But still the voice that speaks them both, and yet that,
Since it has impressed its image on the reader,
As if on hardened wax,
No longer is, no longer speaks?