Between our fingers & our thumb
The squat pen rests—we’ll dig with it.²
We bring nib to Page and pen to Life with urgency
And patience, word by word—with abandon and care.³
What annuities of hours and comfortable blood we Burn—
To get our Words a bare honoring in your ears.⁴
All our books blur into the word: “Write!”⁵
Writing is the permeable edge—between
Inward meditation & outward Connectivity.⁶
Writing is an act of silencing a Creature that
Flaps within: on the page the monster is
Released from our inner Recesses,
Free to Unsettle another mind!⁷
The moving Finger Writes—
And having writ, moves on …⁸
We Write as though we have
In hand: the last pencil on earth!⁹
We utter the thoughts into Flame
Which burn at our Heart—
This is the curse: Write.¹⁰
¹ George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
² Seamus Heaney, Digging
³ Daniel Scott Tysdal, A MAD Fold-In Poem
⁴ Ted Hughes, The Martyrdom of Bishop Farrar
⁵ Edmond Jabès tr. Rosemarie Waldrop, Notebook II
⁶ Ann Lauterbach, Task: To Open
⁷ Mya De La Rosa, Rattle Young Poet’s Anthology Contributor’s Notes
⁸ Omar Khayyám tr. Edward Fitzgerald, Rubaiyat
⁹ Charles Wright, Body and Soul
¹⁰ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Curse