Please do not touch the poem

From the Harvey B Gantt Center for African-American Arts

 

 Please use your polite "inside voice".

 Be careful and considerate of others.

 No food, drink, candy or gum are allowed in the galleries.

 Please do not touch the artwork. Special care must be taken to preserve the artwork and maintain the presentation of each exhibition. The oils on your skin will damage the surface of a painting, discolor bronze or rust steel. Please help us to preserve the art for other visitors and for future generations.

 

Please do not touch the poem

 

Please do not touch the poem.

Even the cleanest hand

may bring minuscule shavings of meaning

into contact with its surface.

Please do not breathe on the poem.

Even the gentlest of temperature changes

may affect the warmth of my words.

Please do not look at the poem.

Even the mildest of glances

may add weight to one of the abstract nouns.

Please do not move the poem.

It's at its best behind glass

and may become unbalanced

if encouraged to alter its viewpoint.

 

You may

of course

allow the poem

to touch, breathe on, look at or move

you.

 

Blue sky thinking

For once there is no writing in the sky.

 

The cloud above us is of glass, they say,

so today the air is crystal clear

and we can see the blue

without our world's calligraphy.

 

Tonight the moon is lying down,

watching the progress made.

The humans of the northern world

are ants in turmoil, baffled

by a twig across their path.

 

Will they turn it round

and float it like a primitive canoe?

Or will ferry-masters up the price,

and seize the profits of the day?

Will those who won first hold

fend off the lately come

to struggle in melt-water?

 

For once there is no writing in the sky.

 

Can they not see the writing on the wall?

wonders the moon

as she sways tonight in her hammock

in the clearest of glass skies.