I Invite You to Step Into Life With Me
By Phan Tan Hai
I write a poem for you, with lines
built into a great doorway, inviting
countless beings everywhere—
a place without the rhythms and cadences
that tire the heart, a place without
the heavy fortresses of declarations,
a place where my heart opens
so you may see all mountains and rivers,
lakes and seas… and even the images of you
flickering from lives far away
in the Himalayan forests… I write
a poem for you, where I reach out
to catch fragments of life and am startled
to see them slip from my hands
and rise into written words—
then suddenly take on their own
fresh existence on the page, with
a thousand doors appearing, calling;
when poetry becomes real life, it too
is scattered, fragile, broken… for my hands
can only grasp the shattered
fragments of living… I write
a poem for you, when each word, each line
seems out of rhythm, out of place,
when the lines stand up on their own
and cover their faces, weeping—
because I cannot make anything perfect,
because I am living in the real world
and everything in the real world
appears, disappears, and vanishes—
like when we see ourselves in a mirror
and the mirror cracks… and I gather
the pieces—perhaps my poem
is a mosaic of broken glass,
its fractures still visible, unhidden… I write
a poem for you, inviting you
to join me in catching fragments
of life, quickly throwing them
onto the page before they distort—
yet even the paper-life rises
and tears itself into pieces,
and I run after them, trying to fit
them back together. Can these scraps
ever hold your portrait—yesterday,
today, or tomorrow… the images
deepening with each wrinkle…
in the next life we may not
even recognize each other… I invite you
to follow me into life, where every
written word is poetry, where every
spoken word is poetry, where every
image is poetry, where this fragile
life has never been apart from poetry—
where it has allowed us to meet,
where the old woman on the corner
and the children on the street
are all poetry, and all poets;
where you walk into the city
and everyone around you is poetry…
and nothing is separate from poetry—
not the brick on the sidewalk,
not the peeling wall at the street’s end,
where we look at life with
simple eyes and a simple heart…
I invite you to follow me into life
where together we push open
the great doors of the world,
where we invite everyone
to speak to one another,
to write for one another,
to read for one another… where
we scribble quickly the most
primitive words for a life
still pure. Where poetry is
a deeply human revolution—
turning everything in the world
into poetry, and turning everyone
into a poet. And where the world
will step away from cruelty.
Throw words onto the page,
layer words onto the page,
and call it poetry—because poetry
is everything you pick up
and hold, everything you suddenly
hear and see, everything
you do… and do it quickly,
so tomorrow the words
may have a life of their own—
as when I think of you…
for every tomorrow is
a farewell to the countless
images of today.
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