drawn line has more than one direction

a drawn line has more than one direction

or so we are informed by

Mark Truscott "There" Branches

How many lines

in this glimpse

of bare tree?

[...]

drawn, a line can

never really move

in just one direction.

It gets complicated from there.

There is a great cover image — a puzzle piece image of a tree. Reproduced in grayscale in the inside covers: once completed or solved and once inverted. Roots. Routes.

In lieu of damaging the spine of my copy of the book by being flattened on a scanner bed, here is the cover designed by Tree Abraham and the cover flipped.

Detail counts in this book. The first line stands alone on the first page: "A branch like a line like a branch" is almost taken up verbatim on the second page "Branch like a line like a branch" -- except a noun has been converted into a verb.

And so for day 2386
25.06.2013

Symmetry: He Said, I Told Him

Section 5 of "The Fausto Poems"

On Thanksgiving I took him home
to my reservation and he wanted to ride horses.

I don't know how to ride, I told him.

He said, I thought all Indians rode horses.

On Christmas, we watched ESPN surfing
and I asked him how well he rode the waves.

He said, I don't know how to surf.

I thought all Hawaiians surfed, I told him.

from Sherman Alexie The Business of Fancydancing

I neither surf nor ride but I read poetry.

And so for day 2201
22.12.2012

More From Miller

George Miller. 30 (some odd) poems. Toronto: Three Tree Press, 1977.

Has the most glorious cover: a cheque (remember those?) made out to "whomever" is written out in the currency of "poems" in the amount of 30 (some odd) signed by the poet.

In those some odd thirty is "Poem for My Daoughters 2" which plays with symmetry

Run away with me

we will forget
what we thought we had
to remember

[…]

Run away with me

we will remember
what we thought we had
forgotten

[…]

We will hold each other
's hands when we cross the street
and maybe we will hold each other
's hands when we do not cross the street

[…]

That splitting of "other's" over the line break is a mark of virtuosity and silliness combined to great effect in a poem we deem addressed to children. It's a cheque we can endorse.

And so for day 1866
22.01.2012