you are writing aren’t you
he asked as the answer slipped from time and space trapped in my void
somewhere between honest answer and truth-telling i waited watching as it fell
beneath the weight of our miles through my silence
while into the receiver, i eventually whispered:
i am emptied disheveled in creative disarray
i am as blank as this worn notebook’s pages
i am lost here without the map from inspiration’s heavy hand
there is no one guiding the pen no voices churning inside my brain
these once rapid- typing hitting-often-on-all-cylinders fingers
rest now fat dead worms lounging waiting for godot on a keyboard’s
sticky keys
and i sit tormented by autumn’s light today gazing through these dirty windows
flustered distracted by the now-constant flight of these painted leaves
each on its own journey an autumn fleet sailing toward a decomposing pile
to join their companions
covering deck ground each speck of green land some even finding rest in a spring
flower’s long ignored container of deadened remains
the wait has unnerved me
thoughts and words must be buried beneath the piles of me too awaiting rebirth
as i struggle to remember the importance
of now-lost words that once meant the world
i am as stark as the branches of these autumn trees
as chilled as morning’s ground of late
as wordless and as swept clean as this nightime sky
a human tricked
by season’s housekeeping
this art lies on its own ground agitated in its flight on dead air
buried beneath the distractions swept away on the currents of a now troublesome
life
that has swept clean a once-vivid palette
In Spring,
Through the mat of fallen
Leaves
The new world to rise.