February 14, 2012

Don't know how to read
the symphony expressed
in all these tadpole notes.

Turn the page to yesterday,
and pray through a watercolor wash
of emotion, bright around the edge

of remembrance. How do we number our days?
1-2-3, 1-2-3, waltz 3/4
through so many doors

and no going back
to paint in the empty rests,
where something else ought to have been.

"Draw in pen" it said,
"so you can't erase, and must make
something better of mistakes."

But I'll leave
such creativity to God:
the eraser and the pen,

the tadpoles caught by their tails,
the whole note rests
(black hats heavy as death),

and the watercolor remaking
of every day, sweet clamor calling
"Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!"