Note to the Society Fellows of Cornell

No crossing without something
To cross—doesn’t matter if
It’s a line, a boundary,

Blank or dark interior,
A demilitarized zone
Or an active combat line,

A person, a social group,
State, or multinational
Corporation. It must be

A presence. It must exist,
Or it must have believers
In its existence, who will

Let you know if you’ve crossed it,
Which is good as crossing them.
Crossing can never happen

Without some ground to be crossed,
Which crossing presupposes.
Here, it gets interesting—

You can posit a crossing
Of phenomena no one
Previously recognized,

Can create phenomena,
Bring things into existence,
Into human awareness,

By purporting to cross them,
By announcing intentions
To cross them, then attempting.

Likewise, ordinary change,
Unremarkable motions,
Can be found to be crossings

As soon as someone cries out
That you are now crossing them,
Their line, their interior,

Some thing in positive space
Or some imagined threshold—
You’ve crossed it, if they say so.

So go ahead, study it.
Elaborate scholarship
On crossing. That’s crossing it.