Writing The Book I Never Wrote(For Linda) Poem by Dónall Dempsey

Pocket notebook
full of poems

written with a green

fountain pen
(in purple ink)

with a calligraphic flourish

left out in
the storm.

The words
run wild

go native

revert to being
just lines

rivulets of words
tributaries of words

all flow and whirl
into purple pools

purple passages

becoming watery
hieroglyphs

a secret language

made only of water and wind.

And now
the hot sun
of noon

bakes the words
cakes the pages
'til they turn and curl

leaving the book
in the position

where words
have thrown off their clothes

and become
as naked as paintings

the unmistakable brushstrokes

of rain and sun

translated into
their own native tongue.