Images by Patricia Pearce & Poem by Miriam Sagan

I love this artist’s work–here are some stellar examples from the Book Arts show in the round house.

And a poem I wrote for her some years ago as part of a Vivo Gallery collaboration.

Borrowed–Unreturned

What is in the sealed book?
Pages embalmed in wax:
Question or obsession
Taken from the vanishing lending library. Truth
Must speak, even as it leaks,
Something served
With a slotted spoon.

Secrets like an Egyptian tomb
Beneath this daily life
Not just the past
But those aphasic dreams
Where things seem
To be of equal weight
Like trying to cross a border
With a suitcase full of composting leaves
Foliage chosen for its skeletal shape,
Notes from a B flat clarinet
Low oboe and bassoon,
A sound without teeth.

These leaves must turn to topsoil
These pages to silverfish
This mirror to a mask
This thumbprint to clay cuneiform
Line of dominoes
Greasy pack of cards
Classification of seashells
Collection of raindrop fossils–

Where these things meet
They spell your fortune
Name where you dwell, the house, the street
Where you will be happy.