Wednesday, April 14, 2021

line upon line

i’m constantly collecting lines.
i’m not sure that’s useful.
perhaps i could become a poet
of fragments, or find a way
to shoehorn them into ghazals.
 
i fill page after page
with these bits and pieces –
journals full of disconnection
while i try to find some shape
to form them into a poem.
 
i must be foolish to believe in poetry;
that it is so necessary. so urgent.
 
i chase down the words
before i forget them,
collect them like butterflies.
or marbles. or stamps.
 
sometimes i think it is enough
to simply gather them together,
display them in array –
let someone else do all the work.
                        it’s tempting.
 
maybe the poetry is found
in the gaps, the spaces between
the edges, where the line
breaks, where you and i dance,
and the whispering breath.

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