Ronna Bloom: A Poem


Ronna Bloom
ARS POETICA

I write poems for money ––
where the giving over
is immediate, before the fact
of the poem, the hill-climb of heart,
the pillage of cells, the language
eruption. It is all and only
in response. The conversation
with silence tapped out
like an invisible ink, held to light.
The cash – a dollar or a thousand –
simply the glow I'm held to;
the person saying: ‘Do it for me.
Here is my door ­–– will you
open it? Hold it open for me to enter?
Will you leave me there alone?’
When the poem is written and I am gone,
it is in the hands of the lover,
as a lover leaves another behind
with the satisfaction and grief
of their own life, shared,
but taken back ultimately
into their skin. It was
always yours. I only held it
up to the light, I only
saw it flickering, caught it like a
moth in my hand and
gave it back.


Ronna Bloom

(from Queen's Quarterly by permission of the author)

Ronna Bloom is a writer, teacher, psychotherapist, and author of five books of poetry. She is Poet in Community to the University of Toronto and Poet in Residence at Mount Sinai Hospital. Pedlar Press will publish her sixth book of poems in October. www.ronnabloom.com