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Page 11

Blank pages are white. If you stare
long enough at bright enough white rectangles
(this book open in direct sunlight),
then close your eyes in a dark room,
you will see black rectangles

or dark ones whose colors, say, dark violet,
reveal that early or late light has given this page
a complementary reddish tint.

Or you could -- eyes open or shut --
decide to see -- and see -- a black --
or any-colored -- rectangle -- or any shape,
that is -- dash it all -- you could if you can;
some can't, apparently. Try it and see.
I mean, see for yourself; that is, if you can
decide to see something and then see it,
you are, without the aid of things-as-we-all-
agree-they-are, seeing for yourself.

But I digress. The difference between black
and blank is one character. Black has C
(because we can c it? Because we live
in a c of it?) where blank has n (because
each poem is the n of blankness and returns
to it? Here's the n of this one.)

Note to the pun-challenged: Black has C because we can c (see) it? Because we live in a c (sea) of it, where blank has n (because each poem is the n [end] of blankness and returns to it? Here's the n [end] of this note.

Note to the pun-unchallenged: Sorry.

On the other hand, even the pun-unchallenged may not have noticed that the "n" that separates black from blank is also the mathematical "n", the letter most often used to designate "any integer" or a number that may take on any integer value, unlimited. (Where "x" is usually the unknown to be solved, "n" in a formula is more often a number that moves from 1 to 100 or from one number to another number (or infinity) to give different answers for x. Thus, like blankness itself, n, that sounds like "end", signifies both an end (the oblivion of blankness) and an infinity or n-finity. How numberlessly numbing!

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