An exercise: read the poem. Create your own piece filling in the event that “did happen.” Pay special attention to ‘writing around’ an emotion/moment to signal absence or emptiness. We create meaning, sculpt it out of substantial (significant) details AND carve into it with the negative space of omitted information. We are gods. We can tell the reader what might have transpired, would have stopped the drowning, occurred in a parallel setting with shattered clamshells, happened without happening. We can. Enjoy.
The dandelions in the moment and then
It is. And needles don’t fall;
cones don’t fall. The soil keeps
holding the grass seed and the dune
sand beneath is still torn by thirsty,
wooden hands. By bedrock
is where will be my tenoned pine.
And the grass seeds don’t split,
their shoots don’t spill. The clouds
remain, widely. That locked closet
inside will never have its tumblers
turned. Honestly, all I had
was the only lie—that I could be
the one who evades. Sparrows
don’t fall, no owl falls. Left behind
are her thin hands, a box full
of ribbons, a bolt, a knife.
Photographs with anybody’s faces.
Hungry letters, angry letters about
a time and people and love that is
not. No image holds its meaning
within itself. Not one dandelion fell.
Please. Something did happen here.
within itself. Not one dandelion fell.
Please. Something did happen here.
Frequency Writers 