the narrow blood-red line is character
the character is narrative implied in space
between the mountain and modernity
the paperwhite is air, snow, coldness, nothing

—everything—if I could choose

I’d want the tiny shack—there between
cleft hill and running river—
where the willows bend to drink—
the solitary oarsman in his damaged boat

I’d choose the year 1080

If I could learn to give my heart its due—
infuse with no-ink the brush that renders whiteness
beautiful—and full of portent—as absence is—
and clarified—and still.

∞

From “Online Exclusives” for the Spring 2013 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 29, No. 2)

© 2013 Anne Barrows