Saturday, February 12, 2011
About Nothing (Poem by Dorothy)
About Nothing
The trouble with my poetry
is that it is about
nothing.
That is to say,
my verses are mainly about
God
and everyone knows
that god is nothing--
not that, not that--
just an emptiness
a space between
heartbeats or
notes on a page,
a single blank space
in the makeup of things
that you can never really
see or
define convincingly.
Successful poets
write about something--
the bread that didn’t rise
properly,
the lover’s groan,
the child who
cried in the night.
My problem, clearly,
is that I never learned to cook,
never planted a garden,
never went out to name
the passing birds.
My words will continue
to praise
nothing,
the presence that
haunts me,
a net thrown out
in a sea
void of fish,
only these small flashing salt crystals
clinging to the ropey knots.
Dorothy Walters
February 12, 2011
