a poet jigs a poetic line
plays in the space of the page
like a holy fool
contravenes convention
will not parade from left to right margin
back and forth as if there is
nowhere else to explore

instead knows lived experience
knows little of linearity
the linear sentence
only a chimeric sense of order
all of us creatures born of words

like a topographer the poet reads
tangled lines like a map
knows how to set
a course and maintain it
around ponds hills woodstands
even where the tangled lines
are scribbled knotty places
the ecotone where differences meet
in contest and rebirth

the poet weaves ways through
tangled lines, knowing
the wholeness in tangled lines
always holes and gaps
even seeing other lines
through the holes in lines
all crisscross weave
all language whole holy
tangled lines
beyond the alphabet