I'm cleaning and organizing the room that had become the junk room. In the process, I unearthed copies of books I've written and I put them together. Hard to tell from this picture because they've fanned out but the poems/books I've spent my life writing can be held easily in one hand. At first that seemed kind of pitiful. But on consideration, it becamemarvelous, ecologically beautiful and actually, a kind of true magic -- like a tiny zoo made entirely of origami animals or
even a little bit like those weird little pebbles we used to get when we were kids, the kind you tossed into your water glass and watched as they bloomed into what the advertising called "gardens under the sea." Only poems are better. Because they do open and extend themselves in the most astonishing ways. And when you shut the book, the poems shrink then vanish right back into their thin, nearly weightless paper homes.
You may close the book, my friend, but the poems don't vanish. Their wraiths wrap around those who read them, and help loosen the heavy loads of life.
ReplyDeletePitiful is not a word which belongs anywhere in the vicinity of your books, Mekeel! It is no small thing to value your life enough to shape it into poetry, then send it out into the world - so much more than paper! I love all of your books. They live in a shelf beside my bed. Even my cat, George E, loves them. He keeps pulling out Wind of the White Dresses, trying to wake me up in the morning. Seriously. He does not pull out any other books. He handles your book so gently - doesn't even chew on the edges. He knows . . .
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