In Sappho, the spaces name nothing — but the emptiness still speaks. Here, it says, is where you must imagine a fullness. The right verb. A noun that works.
Sometimes nothing comes. Then you must go slack and let your mouth form the O of emptiness, of zero, of no-idea-at-all. That way the poem will still be at work. Inside you. Nudging you toward life’s true question — how well do you handle risk?
Can you imagine your thoughts mending Sappho’s? In your hand there’s a residue. In your hand, there’s a disfigured beauty in which an urgency remains.
Deborah Bogen’s books include In Case of Sudden Free Fall (Jacar, 2018).
Copyright 2020 Deborah Bogen
Thank you. I have been experimenting with spaces, emptiness.
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Received this today and I thought you might be interested.
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Such a beautifully accurate statement…. keeping it so I can relight my desire to keep going.
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