Word Painting

                                           (for Yoko Ono)

It’s all heartache

Until you let go

Then it becomes one

Continuous Now

And there’s a void there

No future, no past — just Now

Alone with one gone

*

As glasses fall

Cracking thin ice

A double you torn

Ending Beginning

Yes screaming No

Caught in blood

His empty chair

*

Moments

Without permanence

Each syllable, an instant

An is as was

A silent guitar

All there is

*

Wind blowing

A sand painting

Of hours and colors

Scattered to bring

Strawberry Fields

Into Now

 

 

 

This poem for Yoko Ono was written in Strawberry Fields in Central Park, NYC. Looking up at the Dakota, Ian saw Yoko staring out of a window and rituals of unfixed sand paintings inspired him. “Word Painting” is published in Private Parts: The Early Works of Ian Ayres.