Sampurna Chattarji: Lines
for Yves, Barbara & Nils
Waterfall shower of sparks from a welder’s wand
Steel the wire which multiplies finely
Like water gushing from the tap splintering the glass
Persistence the melody that seeks
The still pond the little creek the small rapids
Cascade molten from the fire
Shadow—bright and blur—immobility
Somewhere a diner is drinking it in
Holding her breath as she silences her cutlery
To hear this strumming with light
Sharp heading towards discordance and yet
Ingot fret-worked into hair a kind of magic
Spun metal sprung note
Pluck illumination out of the furnace
Steel grasshoppers clicking their legs
Against a subtle wood
Bass the deepest black
And the cup clinks against its saucer like
Audible delight on that side of the sound
On this side of the image
We meet
Glistening fish in a sack might make this
Music theirs as their scales lose sheen
More lead than silver now in the moment
Of their last ex[h]al[t]ation
The steady drone of the bee-string
Laments its way to the c[ore]
This painting with strings dipped
In molten metal moving
Lines on a precise extemporal page