at the Jewel Gallery, San Francisco Public Library
LUTE POEM, BY ROBERT BRINGHURST
LUTE POEM The first manoeuvre to master in tuning the lute is to want without wanting: to wish without wishing, to fish and the hunt without fishing and hunting: to burst through the door, asking for everything, yes, and for nothing: to learn how to hope, not to hope for; to open the door neither inward nor outward: unlatch and unhinge and unglue and unmortise the door, returning the wood to the tree where it grew and the lock and the key to the barstock, the ingot, the slurry, the ore; and to take out the windows and pull down the walls and replace them with doorways and doorways and doorways, the jambs short and tall, the lintels and sills of different proportions - some wider, like octaves and fifths, and some slimmer, like seconds and thirds. |