This popped up on the back of a door at work recently. No one seemed to know where it had come from, although it’s signed as Tanya R– on the back. Perhaps it was left behind accidentally. I looked at it for several days, wondering about it. When it was taken down, I asked if I could have dibs on it if no one claimed it. I’ll put it in my NYTimes book about those who died September 11, 2001.

Place out the words, so.
spin them around and around,
sparkling merrily.

White strokes against sky
blue and otherwise clear, so blue
the hand of man writes.

Once only replay
not there, not viewing live acts
repeat, repeated.

I saw in slow mo
given time to consider
the horrific acts.

The day started cold
clear blue sky without clouds
then we were breathless.

I hereby vow that I will not spend the next ten weeks hyperventilating about analyzing poems down to the molecular, nay atomic, level. I won’t. I will read the path of poems chosen, enjoy them or not, think about them, dip into the discussion and run away at the earliest possibility. It would destroy my brain to think that a) poets ponder the meaning of every word and bit of punctuation they write down and that b) we somehow know more about the poem than the author ever did.

When people pester me about what my quilts “are about” or what “it means” I ask them what they think. What comes out is their reaction to my work. If I caught them blathering about what *I* mean by it, I’d knock ’em upside the head and tell them to shut up.

REMEMBER

This hushed song waiting:
the eve of the eleventh
heart overflowing.