~an artwork beneath our feet, yet invisible to
our eyes, constantly changing ,interlocking
interlinking~

this poem has asked for composition
everytime, I walk upon and past the sculputure
beneath my feet on the Esplanade by The River

(Diatom Lace on the East River - Stacy Levy
www.stacylevy.com › projects › diatom-lace-on-the-east-river)  (1)

but as I daily hurry past (for years) and over this pattern form lifted from the
river's flowing,
a daily delaying,
for the words good enough to honor it, the invisible floating floral tentacles,
attaching each water molecule to the next,
do not arise of sufficient quality of wordsmithy,
the Whitman words do not float up from the waters rushing past,
and come to rest in my multi-tasking poetry conceptuals

many months, even years,
have gone by and after every water walk,
the sculpture stabs me guilty,
of procastination,
and an unwillingness to tackle it,
like the other tough stuff that haunts me

so this morning, when I drown in the file laughingly called
100 & One Drafts
a J'accuse (1) finger stabs my eyes and repeats the caveat of the sage
Hillel the Elder: (1)
If not now, when?

and even as I sit and compose,
the words refuse to surrender unto me
for easy transcription
and the chest tight with guilt, from all the
promises I've made and remain
unkempt & unkept,
that stunt and stun my spirit,
with inconsolable sadness

So
I distract myself,
check the sleeping woman<
take my morning meds,<
reheat my "The Gamblers Mug" (Cezanne)(1) of morning coffee,<
and alas, at last, once more surrender to my worst,
and issue an invitation to >you<
come visit me, come walk with me,
perhaps together, a greater good will emerge,
and we will feed each others tongues
with syllables and sounds,
that will trigger,
go figure!
a suitable poem
worthy of a great art work,
the lace of diatoms
in the water,
that our eyes cannot see,
but our hearts
can feel
and with better words,
be so honored,
by a poem
truly worthy
of this

miraculous
conception

The courage to encourage
(‘tis no accident the overlapping
of these two words)
<•>
tilling the fields of beautifully
and freshly seeded words,
gift wrapped in the essays
of the experimenting,
carefully and carelessly toe dipping
in the tooling of shapes and paintings sourced from a mere handful of
twenty six water colors,

in fresh water streaming waterfalls of:
knew
new eyes
new words
newly hewn
combinations

all
upon the early morn bluey sketch,
against a noisy background of a new day’s
first blushing

when the rested brain is so, so
receptive to newness,
itself a word of a
délicieuse lovely phonic
mouth treat

at 6:35an
on an ordinary Thursday

and now an
extraordinary Thursday,
when my inbox of old eyes
is delighted
and crinkly smiling
at the enduring uncovering
of
daring,
earning while yearning,
poets eager to give us freely
the first fruits of
their  hybrid creations

makes an old man
weep new tears,
to accompany
him till the end
of the day,

each tear a diatom of lace upon
an endless river of,
well,
the everything,

a knitting of letters
flaring up with a robust,
Hey!

I am here,
I am aborning

so glad to make your acquaintance
    


                     nml