Four Moments of Reflection on Practical Creation through Imagination

1. brief meditation upon your skirt

an exquisite Austrian skirt
purchased from a second hand store
cascades like wind currents

it dances on its own
a whirling dervish
slowed by the earth's gravity
pulsating gently from the floor

everything in existence is meditating
and I am the meditation

I am learning a new kind of balance:
patient urgency


2. remembering Johannes the Seducer

Kierkegaard broke his engagement
to Regine Olsen by pretending

he entered brothels creating
an image of infidelity
to break her heart

that was the easy way

then he wrote Either/Or
featuring a seducer's diary

how similar they are
machinating their lives

Johannes pretended he cared
enough to keep himself interested
and flocked to the next woman
before his first seduction completed

pretending is unimaginative
because it is cheap

I understand you, Soren,
and don't think I don't see
you wrote from a place guilt


3. whereupon we create together

I have played the part
given to me to its end

true imagination is constructive
building beyond its bounds
in seismic ripples from your skirt
dropping fresh succulent apples

the script of my life has ended
and I need a new authorship

I have learned that William Blake
often took his wife to his backyard
where they were the founders of humankind
living the myth of the Garden of Eden

naked for all to see:
remember - shame came after
the Tree of Knowledge

he understood the need
connecting all of his being
to the divine moment of creation

I will pick your apples
from the ground
and eat them


4. a hommage

Piter Piter, snowy night,
In the city's wondrous sight;
What song beckons from thy chest,
Carry words we may ingest?

Flitted flurries come and go,
Winter's melody bestow;
Your hands, mine, across the sea
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