and again.

and again

                                         In the beginning,
                                         a silkworm spun 
resurrections:
                                         it spit thread, spilled
                                         fibers that stitched bodies, 
spit nerves, 
                                         spit veins, spit copper, spit wires, 	
                                         flipped switches, 
Strummed strings, 
                                         spit bar, spit
                                         measure, it spit fire.
laid siege 
                                         to empty villages,
                                         took nothing, gave Earth, 
gave trees, 
                                         gave fruit, gave blueberry,
                                         gave feeling, spit rhyme, spun
resurrections

and again. 
                                         A seamstress weaved resurrections:
                                         weaved ends
to ends, 
                                         weaved loops, weaved trapeze, weaved 
                                         nerves, weaved veins, weaved feet to 
                                         woven beats, weaved beat to stolen
                                         flame, weaved flame to woven page, 
juggled words 
                                         until they fell away, then weaved
resurrections 

and again.
                                         We lived 
resurrections:
                                         lived as us, lived as them, lived as
                                         it, lived as friend, 
lived instead of
                                         living there, and lived 
in spite of being dead, 
                                         we lived in place of living, we lived with 
                                         and without anything to live for, then lived
again

¹photographed by Sahib Chandnani (@44poetry) at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco, California

---

Poetry Tip of the Day!

This poem was first published in the Mindwell Poetry press collection entitled We Don’t Break, We Burn: Poems of Resilience edited by Zachary Kluckman. I was extremely excited since this was the first time that one of my poems was going to appear in print in someone else’s publication. During college, I was the Web Editor for a magazine called Apricity—which was my actual first print publication, but I don’t really count it because it’s really hard to say no to a poem when the author is sitting right next to you in the review room. This background is important because it was never supposed to be about resilience. I wanted to try and capture the Hindu concept of reincarnation, karma, and all of their cycles through both sound and form. The first draft of this poem allowed me to nail down the sound aspect—the taste of the poem if you’ve been keeping up with these tips. But only when I revisited the draft for this post did I finally get the form I wanted. This is the most complete version of the poem, and even if you read the original in the Mindwell collection, I hope this one adds something fresh. You could even say it’s been reborn.

---

1. imposter