The Apprenticeship

When I read over the poems 

from the apprenticeship last winter, 

I grieve only that I didn't write more poems. 

What happened was fleeting, rare,

I knew it even then, ventured to extract 

all that I was able. One January Morning

I entered the arts building and saw 

the glass door to the gallery 

open with nobody inside. 

I moved to the center of the wide space 

with notebook and pen, intending 

to write. I studied the massive 

paper works we constructed, mounted 

to walls with small magnets and 

suspended from the ceiling 

with yards of fishing line. The fragile

earth tones already fading. I titled

each poem on the apprenticeship

“Caesura,” included a visible 

break in each line I believed 

to suggest eros enacted between 

two souls or the negativity inscribed 

in creation. I was guided  

by a confused theory of aesthetics, began desiring 

the artist as a generative experiment 

which soon became troublesome and real.

The invented world spilled over 

into physical life. For a time I possessed 

a knowledge I could stand upon. 

Then it left. I couldn’t even remember 

it’s hue. The world 

in isolation is like a lamp 

without a bulb. I waited 

in empty space surrounded

by images. No words came. No one walked in 

or asked what I was doing. Then, 

after a time, I left. Living

is like this, a few gripping motions 

in the low still water, then 

dissipation, vacant space, width.