Nocturne with a Line from Porchia
Everything is nothing, but afterwards.
I rise and the moon disturbs the darkness,
revealing symbols, a few stolen words
on the bureau. Tomorrow I’ll express
my gratitude by disappearing be-
fore I’m found, which is to say goodbye
before hello, a paradigm for the
prepossessed. Compton tells us to imply
what’s missing, like Van Gogh or Bill Monroe,
but why listen to the dead before they’ve
stopped speaking? Unfortunately we throw
out the bad with the good, only to save
the worst. I return to bed, and the floor
spins. Nothing is everything, but before.
This first appeared in The Blue Hour Magazine in December 2014, and is also included in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform. The line “Everything is nothing, but afterwards” comes from Antonio Porchia’s Voices, translated by W.S. Merwin. Porchia wrote one book in his lifetime, but what a book it was! Often described as a collection of aphorisms, Voices is so much more – each time I open the book, I find new meaning in old lines.
“Unfortunately we throw
out the bad with the good, only to save
the worst.”
Reminds me of what I was taught is a Spanish editor’s proverbial task: “The job of editing lies in sifting the wheat from the chaff, and throwing the wheat away.”
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Now that’s a familiar task!
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Very, very nice. Thanks for sharing.
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Thank you, John.
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Very nice play of contraries.
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Thank you.
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Loved your poem, Bob! Thought provoking. And thank you for introducing me to Porchia! Now I’m getting his book.
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Porchia is one of my all time favorites. You’ll love him, Lynne.
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Antonio Porchia, eh? I am going to have to check him out. Thanks for introducing us all to him.
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There are some koans among his writings. I’m sure he didn’t identify them as such…
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My fave line: “I rise and the moon disturbs the darkness . . .”
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Thank you, C.M. My favorite line is Porchia’s. 🙂
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🙂
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I love this. Thanks for sharing.
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Thank you for reading it, Merril.
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Thank you.
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Back at you.
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A triple play. One of those wonderful rich poems, a perfectly matched visual image and a new writer for me to get to know. Thanks you Robert, you warmed up a frigid day.
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Am happy to have offered a little warmth!
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Beautifully penned, Robert… a mournful piece.
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Thank you, Lori.
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My pleasure, Robert 🙂
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