We go out on these limbs,
bent and twisted turns of phrase,
fearful that we might fall
or be suspended in our animation—
like the cartoon branch that keeps Bugs Bunny in mid–air
while Elmer, saw in hand, and the rest of the world
fall impossibly away;
but—even when the world falls away—
the writing must go on, somehow,
a bridge we build in front of us, and behind,
one step at a time.
About the Author: Joseph Stanton has published poetry in a wide variety of journals and anthologies including Poetry, Poetry East, The New York Quarterly, Ekphrasis, and Harvard Review. His work has been collected in Imaginary Museum: Poems on Art, A Field Guide to the Wildlife of Suburban O'ahu, What the Kite Thinks, and Cardinal Points: Poems on St. Louis Cardinals Baseball. His scholarly work has appeared in such journals as American Art, Art Criticism, The Journal of American Culture, and Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal. The Scarecrow Press has just published his new study, The Important Books: Children's Picture Books as Art and Literature. Stanton teaches art history and American studies at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.
Copyright © 2007 by Joseph Stanton. The poem may not be reproduced in any form without the author's express written permission.