On Writing

I’m overcome by a sudden birth
Of lines –
Straight, curved, short, long, bold, feathery –
That I hope to make a sound delivery of,
Make memorable like a song,
Intelligible like a modern dance sequence,
Meaningful like a painting
Simple like beauty.

I feel wrung out
Of a creation that seeks to remould itself -
Released
From a voicelessness that can only find existence
In a sculpture of words -
Emptied
Of an intense desire to carve from nothingness
Or from the simplicity of my soul

But for the nebulous remnants of an after-birth
A placenta to be extracted that never is
For it remains in its own
Comfortable existence within the womb
Waiting for another expulsion in
Another definition of life -
In uncrossed, un-woven, un-latticed, un-knotted
Simple lines.


2006