What Is The Sound? \ If The Light Wrote A Poem

Alan: So much comes to us when we are still and simply listen.

What Is The Sound?

       for Nancy

What is the sound

of one poem sitting?

sitting quietly by itself

in a notebook?

in a computer?

in a folder?

in a safe?

in a mind?

What is the sound

of one poem? many poems?

a lifetime of poems?

a lifetime of sitting

quietly, sitting,

looking inward and

outward, asking,

seeing, asking,

and emerging,

poem by poem,

question by question,

answer by answer,

or no answer –

What is the sound

of one lifetime? many lifetimes?

a safe full of lifetimes

answered and unanswered,

held and unheld,

released and un-

released?

What is the sound

of one poem, one lifetime,

released and rising,

floating away

into Time itself?

vanishing

into the sound

of Time itself?

Nancy: Say it – make it happen.

If The Light Wrote A Poem

It might write rough branches

smooth buds, glossy bark

it might write ochre

charcoal, lavender, ice

or it might write an old woman

sitting on a stone

    looking beyond the horizon

    looking ahead of the light

and it might scratch out December

and write cerulean instead, celadon

green on the rough branches

blue stars

sky blue stars in the grass