The Music of Arvo Pärt

The beauty of smoothness removed;
a leaf with holes and scars.

Pick it up, look through and see
gnawed bark’s scarifications–

Winds whip spotted branches;
imperfection survives.

Let obsessions go or grow
like lichen, very slow,

very slow. Let moss and decay
have their way without which

there would be no Arvo Pärt.
Living surfaces always have flaws:

a rose without the slightest blotch
would be too quixotic to last, even

for a second. What is transcendence?
Pupils; leaves with holes and scars.

.

I’m Not Nobody,

I’m nothing. What are you?
Are you whatever, too,
fragments, broken mirrors, Who
shattered into shards?

How pleasant to be absent!
How foibled, like the drop
that thinks it full fills billabongs,
yet desiccates like snot!

.

the blind poet

is satisfied
one out of three
how can vision
lack in sight while
the third eye sees

© Thomas Dorsett

Examples of Thomas Dorsett‘s poetry have appeared in over 500 literary journals, including Confrontation, Southern Poetry Review, North Carolina Review, The Texas Review, Poem, and California Quarterly. He is the author of a number of collections as well. In addition to being a poet, a translator, and an essayist, he also has been a medical doctor for many years.

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