The ones we know best are so hard to know,
slip through our fingers as we ourselves do
as water does, as worth does, as wish does,
as love does when we try to bestow names.

The ones we know best are so hard to know
for they become for us habits only -
we look and look away and think we still look
when we have moved on to distract ourselves

The ones we know best are so hard to know,
because knowing is always risk and we
abhor risk because it’s our undoing,
the silver snake slithering through green grass

This is no latitude for empty gaze,
Labyrinth where we ourselves amaze