In September:

My friend left wet paintings in the backyard for the first fall leaves to drift on to. The leaves, not fully dry yet, immigrants from another continent, another life form—the paintings not fully dry yet either.
She arranged her painting to resemble drops of dew forming on the surface of a slick plane. The leaves that have landed might create an atmosphere of real spontaneity.
Homeless spirits drifting by.
The concentric tree-ring likeness.
Lacquered slices of painted paper.
Is poetry closer to description, or is painting?
I want to fill in my theories here, to practice knowing where I stand.
Poetry is a different sort of seeing.
“blown-up lichen frightens darkness artificially away.”
I love the shape of Canada because it is organically formed on its top half, and man-formed on its bottom half. A piece of quarried marble.
Language is like this, somehow. Part of it is very much man-made, and part of it formed on its own, formed in our bodies, our mouths, which we ourselves did not make.
Which came first: the coastline, or the border?
Of course the coastline came first, came as a natural model for what we could make ourselves.
Make a painting, make bread, make a boundary between two forms.
Island and ocean.
Ellis and Staten.
The painting and the leaves that fell on it in the night, which, although they weren’t intended, contributed.