Saturday, December 9, 2017

Unincorporated Lines

The first real snow last night. Everywhere I went today -- the Greek food store, Stella Coffee in The Fisher Building, the library -- people were cheery. I felt cheery too, something about the detritus of the year covered over, the hard lines of brick softening with a collar of white, the bracing air.

I've been writing a lot lately. For me, the practice for both life and writing -- because we bring the same mindsets to bear on creation and living -- is to walk forward with a joyful expectancy of the unknown, to see what happens. A few things from my notebook...

      *

Shots fired outside the Institute of Arts -- 
panic's animal understanding touched one 
and then another and the crowd broke,
streaming along Farnsworth Avenue.
A crackling in the night, shouts, sirens,
and the whump, whump, whump
of a distant police helicopter.

     *

We love only the specific form
but long toward the place all beauty points -- 
the lines on your face...

     *

I made a space for you in my arms, 
small because you were small. 
I have carried your absence ever since.

     *

The life you took off like a jacket
forgotten on a chair-back 
of some sidewalk cafe -- the loss 
you didn't realize until one day 
you went looking for it.


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