With apologies to Rudyard Kipling, I offer this poem / prose / moment.
I don’t know why this appeals to me — writing over text, or, what I’ve been calling overwriting.
It’s something about paper, smooth but with tooth, and the way the pen rides across the old printed page. Newsprint shares this quality, and I sometimes write on old newspapers too.
It’s something about how the hand and pen feel at ease, so that the mind relaxes too. And it’s something about text as art; when repurposed, how it can shine as a form of design.
Maybe this overwriting is writing without thinking (my favorite kind of writing). Maybe writing over a previous text enhances the temporary feel, so that the pressure to “write good” is lessened.
The page opens, the pen allows, the words roll out and over, layered against another story, another meaning, connected to a newness that is rooted in oldness. Who knows what will surface, what will emerge?
An Habitation Enforced
It isn’t always birdsong here
but the steady song lulls you
into a new faith that says
this is how it always is,
and so you believe the
birds travel your path and
fish swim close just for you, and
the waves, they are but a
gentle roll, a reminder of
what you have to lose.
On the shore, you see
a man waving.
You think
this is love
calling you home.
— Drew Myron