A Whittle Of Words... Poem by John Tansey

A Whittle of Words...
Sitting, slumped in a chair,
On a wooden porch
And under the sun
That, moving slowly, like a brushfire,
Across this steamy afternoon,
Burns the underbrush, the dead, twisted leaves,
Of my depressed thoughts,
That leaves an open clearing.

With nothing done and nothing left to do!

I am absorbed by this moment
And open to each one that trails after:
All, reoccuring shapes in nature;
Echoes of the same first sound
Come from the whittling of mere words,
like a piece of wood;
Its shavings, fall to the ground

As so many crumpled pieces of paper.

It is in the shaping, the carving,
The very paring down of the fat;
That the art, itself, disappears.
And the value of nothing remains
In the palm of my red, overworked hands:

And it is this gesture, an open hand, all that I, humbly, extend to you...


John T Tansey 06/10/07

Copyright ©2008 John Thomas Tansey