The Words: a Suite in Three Movements

1

As surely as paint on canvas

or notes on a keyboard,

these words go on paper:

not exactly the blue skies or a sun,

much less than flowers in a field

or a river running south.

Still, if less than perfect,

not quite equal to this beauty,

words are what we heard or saw;

and so, as fully realized

as what they aimed to describe,

what they wanted to praise;

how this will be remembered

by you and me and those to come.

2

Surrounded by the people I love,

by the clouds and the trees,

all these treasures of each day,

there is still the quiet of the night,

the solitude I share

with pencil and paper;

the happiness of watching

the words begin to arrive

to put all this in its proper place;

to hope for the right colors,

the exact sound of voices,

  in all their shapes and forms;

for in the end, accuracy

is the beginning of gratitude.

3

Flaubert talked of entire days

devoted to the question

of placing a comma,

and why would he not?

The challenge in all this

is to be understood,

to witness an afternoon,

to locate its falling light

on an intelligible canvas:

to paint it for a reader,

and say, here I was,

and so will you be as well--

but only if I have found the way

that brings us to the same words.