"The Publisher of Heaven" [by Ron Padgett]

The Publisher of Heaven

I looked at my leg and became a publisher. The day was bright with my leg. The trees laughed quietly, the wind shifting their leaves this way and that, in unison, each one a good example of a leaf.

There is a halo in search of each of us, but we are trees who lift our wooden limbs and moan like Scandinavians who have taken life far too seriously. The publisher has a book on this subject, printed in 1929. In it we see color pictures of slender pines in a bright blue day before the Crash.

Then the r left that word, which spelled panic. But we have a book on that subject, too. Sometimes I curl up in front of the fireplace and read it—not the words, just the white space around them. I published it that way.

—Ron Padgett

Comments

[Gloria Frym]

breaking lines or letting them keep company, Ron Padgett's poetry always has the beauty
of delicate truth. This is a particular sparkler.