Composition

Let the words take me, for I am of words alone.

I have tried to be different things and have failed,

losing even the words, losing myself in gibberish.

I have taken stone and ink in hand,

have taken on the satin mask of mime,

have fashioned wings of bone and kite string.

I have taken other bones, and onions, and have made

soup, but no poetry.  Broth is not my medium—

thinner than lifeblood, and only nourishing.

I have taken up the palette knife,

and cut cheese with it:  a red round of gouda

that looked good on the plate but not the page.

And as a watercolor painter finds a bit of marble,

thinks it would be fine to carve a tortured face,

and fails—and thinks because of it he is no artist

after all, so have I tried bending to my purpose

those stuffs that are not mine.  I must run now

and overtake the words before they’re gone:

let them swarm over me, cleaning the bones.

—Christie

(August 1979

Oakland/San Francisco)