Writing
Writing
Pages are fields for the hand
To go walking through,
Leaning on the cane of the pen,
Always in the same direction
But never meeting a fence
Or uncrossable stream.
The fields are endless. Yes,
It can be daunting setting out
Each morning knowing that
Where you stop will look
No different from where
You began, like those pioneers
Who needed the sun to remember
Which way they were going
Because while they slept
The grass sprung up
In the paths the wheels made.
But the pioneers at least
Had a destination in mind,
A place where they would stop
And finally look back.
And even the ones who found it
Easier to just keep going
Eventually came to the sea.
But the end of the page is not
The end, just as the horizon
Only appears to be where
The earth ends. Turn the page
Over and there is another,
Under the one
You’ve been writing
On, fields under fields
Like straightedge razors.
For a real writer
There is only one
Way to stop writing.
I’m thinking of Harrison
Struggling to finish
His last poem, his already
Indecipherable scrawl
Becoming more indecipherable
As his heart seized up,
Knowing he was dying,
That someone would
Find him at his desk,
Keeled over
Like a boat far inland,
His final poem under
His hand, having come
At last to the end,
Not of the fields —
They are endless —
But of a long walk.