(Agnes Martin “The Rose”)
is the work
of turning of turning
field to field
as in spring the winter
rye is turned
its interwoven underside
made legible
or as when in summer
the flax is turned
from straw back to billow
the fibers
dam-rett and knife-broke
scutched and hackled
spun to thread
and woven into swaths
of soft linen
Like the weaver
caught up in the pleasure
of vanishing
into the work the shuttle
the felted
thump of the beater against
the weft
self-forgetful
as dust motes
in sunlight she draws
with deliberate unemphatic lines
the echo
while thinking through snowfall
of roses
of rose of roseness
of not drawing roses
Jennifer Atkinson is the author of five books of poetry. The most recent one, The Thinking Eye, was published by ParlorPress/Free Verse Editions in 2016. Individual poems have appeared in journals including Field, Image, Witness, Poecology, Terrain, The Missouri Review, and Cincinnati Review. She teaches in the MFA and BFA programs at George Mason University in Virginia.