Etched into the knower's inscrutable face

are at times the image of its affect or disposition

or a caricature of its self-awareness

or the wake of its restless sight

or possibly some proof outside the scope of our shackled faculties

By their own allegations the agents of inscription

are all particles of being

every shift of sate, every development and regression, need, accretion, xenophobia, power, danger, violence, fear, every word into which the al may be divided and made sanitary enough for consideration, all in tumultuous struggle, without victory, surcease

without even goal

or alliance, only mindless conflict, all of it guiding the hand that describes, leaves trace.