Josh Hanson
Three Theses
I. Ars Cantus
There is music
and that is all
we have learned
to say of it.
And the singing
to oneself over
and again to try
to learn to speak
as the humming of Gould
through variations bends
toward language
what language but this:
the words speak only
of the music they speak
or else silence
or failing that, too
poetry.
II. Dante’s Camera
was a dark room lit
by a rare light
that did not need him
or the room,
nor shadow-frame of window.
Not even the dust that rose
from his beaten sheets
tho it shone
illumined,
bore anything of it.
Dante’s room
diverted loving light
through the contrivance
of its measured aperture
and filled itself as if it shone
itself.
The insubstantial light
whose shadow
disturbs the poet
at his lamp.
III. From the Anglo-Saxon
Of the forgotten beliefs, this
That there is a balance that rocks
On the pivot of a single breath
Exhalation in time and rest
The caesura between rising
And our necessary descent.
The loss of breath beyond the tragic
Stuttering verse closed at line’s end
Or midway through.
Parabola of sound
That swings toward silence, sings
Its rise and fall, half-thoughts
Of a common tongue made whole.
©2003 by Josh Hanson
