The Reader is the Part of the Poem the Poet Cannot Write

The reader is the part of the poem the poet cannot write.The poet chooses the words and places and replaces them,hides them in the basement,slides them between photographs in the attic,brings them out for anoccasion.-The poet finds sequences of words—She feels she has discovered them, as if they wereAlready made and waiting to be found.Sometimes sheDreams them,Hears them over cocktails.While working into the silence ofLeaves intersecting with breeze,She gets chilled by the fabric of memory-and presses her nailsinto the soft woodbetween the grainson the armrestof the Adirondack chair.She sings gently to herself:-“Trying to see Truth is like trying to seeWind—You only know it’s there by the branches thatBend.”-Maybe he (this poet) crafts them (these words),Works them, throws them on theKick-wheel and turns them intoAncient shapes. Maybe-At the end of the dayWith some left over clay,-He attaches a face to his effort.He wonders what colors this one will take when placed withOther forms,Other facesIn the transfiguration of the kiln.-And the things he thinks when he drives!Sometimes fearing loss he struggles to keep the words whole before they slip away.“Remember! Remember!”He has shouted lines three times in his car onThe highway (I-40, I-85, I-95, I-26, I-90, I-20, I-81, I-64, I-75)Late at night or early on justTo try to hold fast-To them before they fly out the back windshield orWedge between the seats indistinguishable from the Trident wrappers, cinnamonOnes, still somehow sugar dusty on the paper.-All this is hard enough.-Now know that the reader is the part of the poem the poet cannot write.-The poem is not complete,not fully possessed by its glaze,not made into stone,until the reader arrivesto be loadedand to transfigure, for-The reader is the kiln for the poem.And the reader is the part of the poem the poet cannot write.

Copyright 2012