Dear Dewey, I tried to think of your quote
as you intended it; instead, I applied it
to the life lived, a notion I know you approve
but I’m not sure you’ll approve its application
when the life is just mine; enclosed, my notes:

           said of the child who sees the candle’s flame
           and touches it, “The burn is the original seeing”
           the burn is the original father, fear, flowering
           of the imagination; what will lift
           from this site? what will make the neck crane?
           how many birds will rise from this burn?
           how many of my father’s marriages
           will be rewritten by my slow flapping
           towards the sun? and how many painters
           stand on hand, ready to record the provincial
           details of the day going on? this is my reckoning,
           Mother, my love, my willingness to reimagine
           this is a splash, a few white feathers, the inevitable

Dawn Tefft | Mudlark No. 29
Contents | Dear Stephen Hawking