Ars Poetica: The Hidden Light
The attempts: I stare out the window,
then run into the other room
to the mirror. Yes,
I'm still here. Tea helps,
just the act of moving my hand
as if it were touching the ground
like the Buddha, one hand down,
one up, sipping my way into heaven.
But now what I'd really like
is a poem, yes, a long trail
of words into some corner,
then a door in the wall
and a path to new ground,
summer, winter, I don't care,
just so it's ars poetica,
somewhere to rest my mind
as I listen to the music
of the window, the sky
that rests there, trees, the words
between branches,
the birds in the trees.
Now I smell the flowers
still underground yet
always growing just as
the stars continue to float above us
even when our world is light
and their light is hidden.
—Nellie Hill
All Day, Pen Poised
This is how you get the poem.
You sit in the boat just offshore.
You cast--a whine as the sinker plunges.
Water slaps the boat's sides gently.
Voices drift from a cottage,
plunkety plunk on a summer piano,
toward evening a loon's cry,
and the silent beaver swimming their way
to some secret place.
Which is the poem--the thick-mouthed bass
you fling into the boat or the sounds
that foretold his arrival?
—Nellie Hill