horizontal series
(Come in, you said
but the day did not hear you.
And you saw for the first time
it wouldn't be as you supposed
the heart would always hurt
from not being chosen;
doves lined the longing streets
\with their east-colored silks, their latitudes--
you didn't have to be just like those,
you could pretend the other magic
also had returned,
even if it hadn't)
poem by Brenda Hillman from page 61 of
Loose Sugar, Wesleyan University Press, 1997
This poem has quasi-footnotes at the bottom of its page, but I did not try to reproduce that effect here. Brenda's poem is not centered in the book either (it hangs on the left margin in a proper manner) but I am fighting with Blogger tonight, "Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you." Or something. . . Notice how Hillman uses punctuation in an unusual way. Copy out some poems for yourself and see what you can learn. . .
Looking again at my photo of dry knapweed seedheads in the snow, now I think I also see a lilac pencil! And I think the east-colored silks in the poem might be just these colors. Rest well, and dream in color!
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