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AF11lR ATTEMPTING TO RECONCILE TIlE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIFE AND ART,
THE EDI1UR PRIm's FIVE VERSES, IS RESIGNED.

I) There will be no sonnets here.
I will arise wi th illiterates
to stroke the knob of reason
until it becomes a soft, round handle
even small fools can open and swallow.

II) Sister Agatha was just an old nun, in Physics class. Her womb frozen
before the alter, she had grown old to the giggle of school~irls,
saying: "Electricity is like God --when it's not there, you re sorry.
Maybe you can't explain how it works, but you Ire grateful."
She taught me to see Milton in a filament of light. It was not
Physics, or Milton either, but it was enough.

rrn Mybrother the lawyer once told me: "QUit writing--go to law school--

only way to make money with your words." I remember how he grinned,
toothless, eyes vacant, polishing black and white torts until they
glistened. As judges jur-ied, he pulled precedents from his pocket on a
gold chain--until his marriage broke. Now, years later, he wants me to
reassure him that words can outlive the thickest covenant, outstep any judge,
and begs me for some poetry, to heal his wounds.

IV) Once, I saw the work of life in art, the work of art in life. There 8...
was art to be found In the morning dust clapped like school chalk upon
the red brick ••• I saw it there, humming Keats, and looking for him .,
too, beneath the goldenrod. Of course, if I had met John Keats standing

by an urn--ancient or otllerwise--he might not give me time of day,
and what would that do to Beauty being 1'nlth? Make me hate the line,
think it something he stumbled on one night instead of sleeping--his
Whife!s' namhe bein g Trudy, and her eyes looking makBeuth0J0''•Kthe l~ne atmelre,
ap ess r yme th e moon twisted into verse to e a eats anmor a •
Now try and tell me the man is not the poet. Tell me it does not matter
how or if he ties his shoes, j_f or when he counts from one to ten
in order. Tell me if I can meet him in a meadow sparked with dawn
and fired with dew. Then ask him if he's fearful of knocking with
his hands full, upon a reader's door, afraid of the summons waiting
for him, on the other side.

V) I grew old lamenting the death of young poets.
In deaf places, where the only iambs were your hands,
words alone could never touch you.

There's an artist buried in us all; leave finding it. to others.
And be careful and kind at your digging.

Nancy Keating Barry