Writing Spaces

“The Moving Finger writes, 
and having writ, Moves on,” 

as Omar Khayyam tells us in his Rubaiyat.

I am thinking about erasures, about writing by weather and by time that can be read as a long cautionary tale, a poetry of loss.

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Up Near Hadrian's Wall 

Stories I Thought I'd Written

Stories I thought I'd written

have instead 

written themselves in me,
into the sinew of my arms, my hands.

The way pine branches
writhe unmovingly
like Laocoön riddled by serpents,
within the lissome grace of needle-sprays.

The way oxbow rivers
reveal their agonizing course
through the bedrock
as if in motion fluid as water,

meeting resistence
as they find themselves 
again and then again returning 
where they started out.

March 17, 2018

(Writing towards Healing)

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Sepia Pine

What Scares Us

On his Facebook page, Nick Bantock, artist and author (best known for his Griffin and Sabine trilogy), posted this writing challenge:

"I understand that during these rough days, most folk just want to be cheered-up or distracted. But sometimes, in order to see any light, we first have to admit to (ourselves) what scares us. Not by wallowing in self-pity or destructively acting-out, but by ‘simply’ expressing our deeper fears in a creative form (much like Picasso, painting Guernica to let out his pain and rage). So, here’s a suggestion, a simple way of letting go:

Write a short poem (4 lines is an easy length) that sums up your undertow of anxiety. It can be literal, metaphysical, or two steps removed; whatever comes out, without judgement."

Here's my response:

Everything I love, behind a rigid pane—

unbreakable, spotted with last month's rain.  

All I can touch is this (all else watch pass),

the cold indifference of glass.

image:  https://hdwallpaperim.com/rain-water-drops-water-on-glass/