Still, how beautiful and perfect
each raindrop looks— pearls strung
in that radial pattern, artful across
the web. Easy enough to think
each raindrop a pearl, a rhinestone
broken loose from a silken thread. And
the web’s an easy metaphor, just think.
Someone paces, paints, or writes all night.
Then something loosens: a sigh snaps the threads
that held the shapes, that filled and colored
in the light. Sleepless, write or paint all night:
then revise at dawn; wreck, rewrite. Begin
all over again— what filled those shapes? Color
that beguiled with absolute certainty of itself.
Revising at dawn, amid the wreckage of beginnings,
you find it’s hard to remember how love looked
except beguiling, so absolutely sure of itself.
Think radial patterns, think lines that artfully cross
with all you need, want to, remember. You know how hard to look
at what’s unfinished; proclaim it beautiful or perfect, still.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
