Fence of Sticks by Deborah Digges

Fence of Sticks 

As I was building a fence of sticks I heard the question,

Weren’t there times worse than this for art?

Weren’t there those who, rather, bristled were they understood,

who worked alone, the manuscripts thrown out or bled beyond the margins.

I was sewing the wire between the pine and sycamore,

tightening the warp with willow and forsythia, some just in bloom.

I thought of those who’d rather hang themselves than call truth heresy.

Upon whose deaths the citizens rejoiced.

They who burned everything.

Those who died longing to say more, whose heads rolled singing.

I was strict with myself, worked long past noon.

The gloves made the weaving hard so I wrought barehanded.

So many pages ending _____, or neatly numbered, or written across the mind.

Those for whom art was not an occupation.

Indeed some never wrote again after what war or famine. Some wrote of nothing else.

I gathered the climbing roses’ whips almost impossible to fit,

that made a lovely spiraling pulled taut, resisting,

each section a stay against the ocean of dead leaves.

A wind came up, the early heat unnerving. Those who refused to make it easy.

They who’d be damned to change a word. The way it came to them

so they would claim. The way was given. How heavy the lengths,

year after year, of pine boughs, Christmas wreaths brown to the bone,

red ribbons like a shout, like an embarrassment,

the holly sprigs still sharp as thorns. Those who died having said too much.

Or who must stop every few lines to dip the quill. They who ran out of time.

Those who ripped folios from the classics.

The boxwood leaves, like oaks’, hold to the bough.

You must strip them by hand, yank the twigs backwards.

I took an ax to the twisted yew, blow after blow, and still it tore.

Its sap ruins this page. I had to pull myself away to write is this not happiness?