Whiteboard poem, winter 2006

In the winter of my first year of graduate school, a new whiteboard appeared in one of the first-floor hallways. For weeks I would pass it periodically, and it remained blank, pure, unspoiled.

Clearly it was just begging to be written upon!

I decided that I wanted to write an anonymous poem on that whiteboard one morning or evening when no one was around--something that suggested the act of being written unobserved and of hinting at more than what it said. The following is what I came up with--it stayed there for awhile before anyone erased it.

I stand alone within the fragile dark
Drawing out these lines like tangled lace
As if these passing words might leave their mark
And linger in your mind, there unerased
As if this ink might hold my memory
And you might read here more than just my words
As if in passing you might think of me
And echoes of my silent thoughts be heard