Reaching
reading Charles Wright
In the beauty you wish to create
there lies something you cannot know
In the brush suspended over the canvas
the stroke that would finish the painting or begin it
In the synapse between the words of the poem
the word written and the word sought
In the sequence of notes / the missing phrase
that one chord that would complete the sonata
What but the search : that last leap
the release from certainties into risk
What you have struggled to discover
what you have reached for
what would save you
Out past the unsure edge : fledging :
that wing / that reaching
that necessity : a kind of Faith.
Cordelia Hanemann, writer and botanical artist, currently co-hosts Summer Poets, a poetry critique group in Raleigh, NC. Retired English professor emerita, she conducts occasional poetry workshops and is active with youth poetry in the NCPS. She has published in numerous journals including Atlanta Review, Connecticut River Review, California Quarterly and others; in several anthologies including best-selling Poems for the Ukraine and her chapbook. Her poems have been performed by the Strand Project, featured in select journals, won awards and been nominated for Pushcarts. She is now working on a novel about her Cajun roots.
Amethyst Review 