Let us set the scene,
his shallow voice announces;
hands inching though conductor’s motions,
humid air seeping through the gaps between his knuckles,
he tries to our catch our fluttering minds like a child catching fireflies.
The stump on which he stands may as well be fifteen years away—
time is of no concern to us
on this late spring day;
we have come to write,
to be distracted in the sun by the
stuff of poets.
We are the people who find beauty
in a grain of rice lying on a mottled grey table;
it is the color of a long-awaited peace.
Its muted glow gives rise to thoughts of a
sun-drenched undersea scene.
And the magnitude of the lightly rugged tabletop
speaks to the human condition of infinity.
Naïvely, by attrition.
But aren’t we beautiful?
Let us set the scene,
his shallow voice repeats;
and we still don’t catch the words,
his intonations drowned out
by the sounds of our surroundings.
How can we listen to the product of poetry,
faced with the lushness around us?
This,
we know,
our writing shows,
this
is the stuff of poetry.
Candleships 