Weekend Poem

I Frame the World

I shape the world with my hands.

I draw the borders of your portrait

With charcoal and chalk

Then wait for your face to materialize like sunrise.

I frame the edges of the earth with my fingertips.

My eyes are receptive, passive,

Limited to limned squares- which isn't much-

Cast upon the blank canvas of mind.

My hands are always probing the frontiers,

Reaching, sightless, feeling for something to clutch.

I gather all I can carry,

A pile of collected objects to be sorted and tagged.

My vision extends as far as the space between my hands.

I learned to ignore the lost loveliness outside these borders.

I was always building frames

For the slivers of world I wanted to save.

I thought the world had to be acquired.

Look at my pile of splintered frames,

Broken slats of wood where every image slowly fades.

Now I find time to sit in stillness on the porch

And forge the world with my hands alone.

Each lost moment gets a concentrated gaze.

4/15/18