V E R S E ❦ I M A G E

[with 3 poems by Larry Sorkin]

I know Larry Sorkin from his poetry. Oh, I’ve met Larry in person a few times, spoken with him more than once, but within his poems he allows me to know him. Wryly humorous, himself often the butt. Fallible & vulnerable. Honest about all that, and open. Intentional; seeking. But most of all Larry Sorkin’s poems, and I must assume he himself, are inviting. Each one, in its own way, offers itself up as an invitation.

Larry Sorkin’s book, Uncomfortable Minds, is all invitation. Share with him this confusing chaotic journey. Share defeat, share contemplation or discovery or joy. Share any of the countless back roads and detours and destinations we human beings travel. This is the invitation – to join him in the garden.

Perhaps the garden is metaphor for our toil, for our occasional scarlet tomato of success, for our physical pleasures. But our toil, triumph, pleasure are not what bless us with words that would unlock the puzzle. What does it take, then, to right this finely wrought chaos? It seems to take being present, as these poems are, to each other. And being present to our own gifted, fractured, seeking self. We’re best when we do this together. And you, yes you, are invited. Join me in the garden.

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Neither This, Nor That – Upanishads

Today I’m nagged by knowing
I don’t. I’ve lost those few

words that
would unlock

the puzzle, set
right this finely

wrought chaos – aren’t you
looking for this too, the lost

quote gone from
book or memory of

our conversations. Friend,
I know we won’t

find it plowing
and pressing seeds

into dirt, not in scarlet
tomatoes that come

later, not even in
the fine meal

we’ll make of them. Does it
matter? Join me

in the garden.

Larry Sorkin

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Pursuit

of a solitary
morning’s ringside

seat to inhale
the ceaseless

erosion of this
folded Appalachian

ridge into a flat
plain interrupted by an Astaire

and Rogers pair of bluebirds that
tap dance on the porch

rail, each waving a single
wing to the other. I call my mate, a string

can line strung across seventy miles to share
a play by play of the ritual

as the male turns
away and she

waves and he
sings and waves and turns

back and so an hour
vanishes, while she and I

murmur our own
shorthand semaphore.

Larry Sorkin

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I Have Nothing

this morning, bits
of nothing found among the clean

stones that pepper the drive where two
tiny sky-blue eggs crack open. One

empty, not quite dry. I lift
with thumb and forefinger as it

crumbles to my clumsy
touch. I leave the other, half

full of liquid sun. How
fragile the chance of what

gets to breathe
and sing. I carry the broken

bits back on my right
palm held open, outstretched, an

offering. I carry them
to you, Reader, before this

world as we know it sinks
like a skipping

stone below a cosmic
wave.

Larry Sorkin

all selections from Uncomfortable Minds, © 2021 by Larry Sorkin; Bonhomie Press, an imprint of Mango Publishing Group, Coral Gables, FL.

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Nothing can be hard to tell apart from everything. A bit of cracked shell reveals deep truth – how fragile, how transitory. That includes you and me, Bub. I think I’ll celebrate. What a privilege to ride this mossy stone as it skips around its star. I’ll celebrate this, too: for twenty years I’ve been trying to write a poem about that little semaphore thing that bluebirds do with their wings to bond with their mates, and now Larry Sorkin has given me one that is perfect. From nothing . . . everything. Thank you, Friend!

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