Where does a poem live? On the page captured in ink or paint or blood? Does it exist merely between the lines or is it flattened between ancient sheaves? Perhaps scribbled on a tenement wall? Tattoed skin deep? Does it live in a moment or an eternity? Does it draw its first beath upon the thinking or the writing? Or is it in the telling, the reading, the repeating? Does it live just in the poet? Or is the poem transferred, by transfusion, into a reader? Is it that thought-- that mental string of letters modified, torn to shreds, swallowed whole, vomited and then spit into the wind-- that just is the poem? Does it gain substance for indeed words have weight? Does it float like dandelion-fluff waltzing off to distant minds: where it might root in fallow ground or be trampled by the stampede into the mud-- where it still might flourish? Upon the hearing or reading does it earworm into brain cells to fester and yet, bear fruit? Do the roots entangle with the 'what was' to become a 'what might be?' Does it evolve, transform when whisked with a differing perspective? Or does it simply fade into the gray between thought and memory? Does a poem live and thrive in the brain, transmuting memory? Does it gouge its point; a finely honed dagger to dig in or cut out? Does it slide softly like a cool breeze across the face of reality? Does it affect neurons and become a part of the wholeness? Where does a poem live? Is it instilled into the heart, that is more than mere muscle to pump life? Does it then touch every facet of the living diamond in the rough? Does it gain the power to metamorphosize mere carbon into something more? Is it then and there it belies reason and simply is? Or ... Does the poem live in the soul? In that existential space unique to each being can the poem change every soul it enhances? Does it shift beyond language into canon, become a prism refracting color brightly enough for even the blind to see? Does it cause the soul to pause, to draw a breath and sigh? Just don't tell me the poem doesn't live, that it is, indeed, mere ink upon a page, mere words uttered into the void - for that would shatter me. The pieces of who this poet is would then be encased to the cellular level in iron to sink to the depths beyond the deep. Or perhaps, not. For I shouldn't believe you. |