(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 12, 2015)
They say a Diné rug will have a flaw in the weave,
a broken line somewhere at the edge.
Rio Grande Valley pottery has the same,
an inside line that never meets its other line.
They say this flaw keeps the evil spirit out.
Two days ago we left home for a cabin in Red River,
left all our plans by mistake on the floor,
our directions and orchestrations, the big intent.
And on the highway near Tesuque I felt a longing
to gather the trail back and an ache to make it right:
the flaw in the cabin floor,
the flaw in the pond,
the flaw in the mountain,
the flaws in the book of ghosts,
their stories gaping in the array
of what could be the managed,
flawless, perfect.
This interruption in the line, the sting
of disturbance wore away slowly in the waves
of landing geese, in the wagging tails of the dogs
chasing ducks and the dome of morning over the pond.
This is the flaw that keeps you honest;
the flaw that keeps you breathing;
the living flaw that is everything
about trying. The flaw is the light
wrestling you out of the dark.
When I went to Red River Friday, I left my list of biases for this project at home. Our cabin also had no wireless. However, my iPhone 3G was working. Yesterday I was determined to pull up Wikipedia and at least peck out a haiku. But then I wondered if I should just let the poem go. This really confronted my obsessive need to try my best to "fix it." And this is why the missing poem was the hardest poem.
