Jon Corelis Poet Blank verse

Notes About The Poem

Graphic by Jon Corelis

 

 

 

The Line

— There’s nothing here.  I’m going to draw a line.
— Good grief, what for?  — Because there’s nothing here.
— Well now you've done it.  The nothing was just fine,
but these blank naked halves have got to go.
— Then blow a wind across them.  — Why a wind?
— It will be a start.  — There.  Now what’s that mean?
— It means desire, of course.  — That’s pretty thin.
Just because the wind sounds like a sigh,
it’s going to mean desire?  — No, not just that.
It also makes things move, itself unseen.
— Not here it doesn’t.  There’s nothing here to move.
— Then let’s lay down a forest.  Oh, come on!
The trees will sway and rustle in the wind.
— So what’s the forest mean?  — It means the heart.
And we’ll thread it with some silvery brooks that splash
and leap from rock to rock, to stand for change,
and half a dozen giggling waterfalls,
just for fun.  — But how come all these things
have got to stand for something else?  How come
each single thing can’t be itself alone?
— I put in waterfalls.  — That’s not the point.
— Come on, we can’t stop now.  Set up an arch
of hard blue porcelain sky, and float a sun
across it lazily to change the light
to pale pink purple fringed with mellow orange.
And when that sun rolls gladly off the edge,
we’ll draw this soft black curtain over it all,
punctuated with points of ice cold light
to stand for what the wind can never reach,
and now we’ll need a cool and looming moon
to pour a soft lumescence on our work,
and a few small scampering things with gentle eyes
to keep the nighttime company.  Take my hand.
Let’s walk into its freshness.  What do you think?
— I think I liked it better without the line.



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