Origami.

This is another piece I have deleted and re-written. I thought it was one of my better poems but couldn't take the advice offered at the time. I hope this is better than the original.

Origami.
^^^^^^^^^^^^
So you think you have clever hands?

To cast in paper shapes images of
A moth or butterfly
Create for yourself
Something that
Is not me?

So you'll take up
little pieces of me
An image
A thought
of power?

Now make a flower
a lotus
Blossom opening in fragrant breeze
Or a dragon
To devour all memories.
A gilded bird in a golden cage
Or a peacock proud
With a tail of eyes?

To garnish, to decorate for show?
I'll hide admist the folds
Where paper hides
A thousand lies
And you will never find me there
Nor seek to display
A sleight of hand.
.
We know you now , the trapped
And the slain
The Geisha shakes
Her fan and pearls of wisdom open
Falling in prisms
of reflected light.

Make of me a serpent uncoiled
To strike with venom at your throat
Or a clawed tiger
about to leap
Rather than open
at your command.

The year of the monkey has gone
And the papers uncurl
burnt offerings
At the shrine of wisdom.

You are -
Nothing
you cannot create
Or try to
Emulate something
Beyond your frail
Understanding.

I am
we are
your discarded
Shapes risen from the ashes of
Your spent desires.

Truth is beyond you
Art lies
In freedom.

© Lisa Fuller April 2006.