Monday Poem

Drawing

In my drawing a line moves
northwest along the edge
of a white birch
toward the top left limit of a page
like an inky contrail
tracing an idea of something
seen in a white sky
it banks up and right
along the dark underside of the shadow of a limb
until it branches again and again
retelling a tale of deciduous DNA,
limbs a matrix of lines
furiously scratched,
motionless,
without sound or scent,
a tree that can’t be touched;
an impression eery as a still ghost
in a closed room
unmoved by wind
untroubled by cold or heat
impossible to be climbed
even by Frost’s swinger of birches,
being abstract as many arts
……………………… .…. —and every art’s
a dependent clause in the narrative of genes
moving as it does
river-like
through lips and limbs
singing dancing leaping
until at its delta it reposes
not spent but
quietly seeping to the sea
it spreads the remains of its tale
leaving it to the furies
of what storms
come

by Jim Culleny
© Oct. 29, 2010