"For one human being to love
another... the work for which
all other work is but preparation."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Isn't there also something to be said
about the romance with paper and ink?
Deckled edges and folios, marbled end
pages; the almost-lost art of penmanship,
letter-writing, sending postcards through
the mail. I know a writer who collects old
pens, vintage typewriters, ink blotters—
the paraphernalia of the writing life before
technology's takeover. Pens overlaid
with vermeil and mother-of-pearl; smooth
stainless steel with heft enough to press
the nib onto the surface of paper. His wife
is an art restorer. Carefully touched to layers
of grime on canvas, cotton-tipped wands, in time,
reveal the understory. For both, reward comes from
a light hand guiding the effort through the medium.
I've always wanted to move in the world like that, and
my language with me— do you know what I mean? Not
plodding through heavy murk forever, but startling
alive at contact with shapes as they show themselves:
their rust and edges, the material of their bodies.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
