Neverwords

I met a small woman
scribbling always all ways
in a small notebook book
of notes which held quotes
to play and notes to see and bee
buzzes of sights she'd seen.

Her dull No. 2 was sharp to clue --

"red shoe, buckle, silver, in her hand,
rain ran over small unbuckled ankles,
and men under newspapers ran like
watches, all wound up, behind red shoe,
small feet patting in rain, rain ran red
from floods of light above, silver" --

Silver graphite observations ran
mercurial on her leafs of paper
pages -- rages of pages -- leafing
from branches and raked into small
No. 2 piles under trees for fall jumping,
dumping her poetics hermetically,
gold leafs, on the wet leaden ground.

When I inquired she said to me she knew
she was no poet of note, noting her quotes
and notes and buzzes of bees could not be seen
poetically. She had been told at the edge of the pond,
told by a toad, she told, where her ball had rolled, gold
ball, that poets were such and not much other,
and poems were this and too much bother if they
didn't fit this, that and the other.

And so she wrote her notebook notes
and walked the parks on rainy paths,
note pages raining, staining the walking
paths with silver graphite notes as they ran
from silver pages into sidewalk cracks
where I'd snatch them fast, the last words
running, quicksilver wet, off the tips of my fingers.