Pearls Mean Tears

"Pearls mean tears."—Doris Lessing

Pearls mean tears she said
What do you mean he said
Are we talking Tahitian black
fat too pricey for the casual gift

unless a million may be said
casually and you can step over
a twenty dollar bill without
stooping to pick it up and so forth

or how about Japanese women
knives between their teeth
diving in only a twist of cloth
to great depths at great risk

I suppose there's lots to cry about there
No she said I mean Rembrandt
that room in the National Gallery
sounds of baroque those rough

imperfect pearls falling
into Trafalgar Square with flocks
of pigeons sent soaring each time
St. Martins-in-the-Fields' doors open

and the big canvas teasing
teasing all the experts how did
the master make the skin translucent
how did he capture the light

as if he placed one brushstroke
inside each shell of time
and tears grew there to bead up
in the corner of an eye

and fall in the second movement
or the third the lions stationary
unmoved guarding the monument
the one-armed one-eyed admiral

while inside the luster and sheen
the opacity cries out to be seen
long after the master himself
disappears from view

The Yellow Line

The Yellow Line

Grass grows down it

down the center line of this place

green tufts sprout from the faded ochre stripe

that separates our comings and goings it's

stretched out between us a cautionary tale

unwound from Pololu Lookout

all the way down Akoni Pule

and the rest of the story

running rings around our island

what else is left to say?

Days are even-handed too

alternating nicely with bed

pillow blanket and dreams without roads

cambered either side of the yellow

See how it clings to the black tarmac

by night shrinking by day expanding

cooling and warming up what we call

everyday existence as we rotate on our axis

You've seen no doubt the human nervous system

sans flesh and bones stretched out or better

an example our strands of DNA those spirals

laid out on the 3-D work surfaces of our imagination

since there's no table big enough

nor ether strong enough to keep us calm

as we consider how many times to the moon

and back the chemistry of information

will pierce its threads of phosphorous

hydrogen oxygen nitrogen and carbon

Well so it is with the yellow line

neither stop nor go this archetypal

agreement is older more primitive

pulled from the flames and mixed

with a little water for one long

one-handed daub

Without end Amen

not to mention other god-like attributes

such as fractal squinting

on all fours a familiar position

as we study the ancient art of stripe

as it travels over and percolates through

every pebble, stone, puka, bump, lump,

serration, aberration in the jagged world

of the diminutive not a straightforward proposition

After all we see a yellow line

and say there it is but there it is

rather more than that

more along the lines

no pun indented

of the infinite

something we really

really relate to and

adopt wholeheartedly

if not egotistically

It is the yellow line after all

that petrifies us truly scares us silly

notice how we jerk back

when we inadvertently drift across

its profound illumination yes

it's the line we drew that frightens

holds its power over us

something inside us

non-negotiable

But you know having set out like this

on my side of the sweet yellow line

I think it's worth saying we need

a bit more of this sort of thing

wouldn't you agree? That is

the ability to agree

silently without getting

in each other's way

This arrangement of the yellow line

single or double so simple

such low maintenance even

faded the truth of it is there

if not a little annoying entropically

(how annoying the fading of the line)

if we can do so much with so little

why don't we do so much that needs doing

so little bit more?

That's what I see

before me

when I see

a yellow line.