‘You exist as the stars exist,
participating in their stillness, their immensity’*

poetry compresses and pressurizes
the ragged edge of an improvisational ocean/sky
I confront the integrity of the line
purity of sketchbook ruminations now outlined
in graphite strokes of velleity

phase shifts embedded in oil stick
color whispering, pressed lips to canvas – bleed/drip
every touch a blossom brush with death
branching iridescent highlights of
a monumentally intimate asymmetry

I come upon the space enfolding
the butterfly lovers, immortal,
burning swans screaming in flight
silhouetted against a murderous apathy

internalized terror of what cannot be released
what rains down upon us, drawn and redrawn
by everything outside ourselves and our control
tracing a watermark of interiority

delineating Whitman’s path
between reality and our souls
infinitude revealed through our separation
I search for a home within
the windowless reading room

……………………………………………………
* from Telescope by Louise Glück
‘The land and sea, the animals, fishes and birds, the sky of heaven and the orbs, the forests mountains and rivers, are not small themes  . . .  but folk expect of the poet to indicate more than the beauty and dignity which always attach to dumb real objects. . . . they expect him to indicate the path between reality and their souls.’ from the Preface to Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman