Luminary

(Amos Oz)

 

I heard you tell the radio host about your pens.

One black, for when you are 100% convinced of yourself.

The other blue, for when you hear two or more voices

disagreeing in your head.

With black you write vitriolic arguments

against your government’s policies

to the editors of the national papers.

 

You said:

Blue is for my fiction.

For your seaweed-weary widowers,

your shard-tongued heroines,

for their chiseled conversations

that rarely end in their being known

better by one another.

 

You get known.

 

You said:

When I can no longer bear my rage, I write in black.

 

How I wish I believed in the taut-trigger power of my pens:

trusted the splatter-hold accuracy of my blank ink moments;

could turn the stratified blues of my self doubt into

somebody else’s turmoil.

 

I wish I knew what i would say if I believed people were listening.