September 2021
Bio Note: Every so often, there is something that asks for a connection among others—something that we do, or think, that recurs across time. Here, in this poem, it is what most of us do; engage in a study of some aspect of the self, and this may be the exploration of nonmaterial realities—the invisible world of poets and poetry—or it may be material, that is physical, as in the poem, "Hands, A Study". My most recent manuscripts, Terminus, A Pastoral, Mummeries, and Nightshades are out making their rounds.
Hands, A Study
The forearm extended, the fingers
slender, turning toward morning,
in a study of the self, a dumb gaze
in the Garden of Cyrus, or say
a white porch in Rhodes,
or old Granada, before work or play,
before turning to a gesture of invitation
or dismissal, want or need, before
touching a pen, or holding a page
of ciphers in dumb wonderment,
a common study of the species
before day has begun, to occupy
a moment even after it dissolves
with all that was in it.
©2021 Michael Gessner
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the
author (email address above) to tell her or him. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual.
It is very important. -JL