What kind
of anarch
am I
on my
best days?
The kind
that eludes
the prisons of
“ists” and “isms”
for the
freedom
of the
“Y”.
Why?
That is
the question.
During
my childhood
daze
my mother
dismissed
my incessant
questioning
of her
authority
(my why-ning
as she called it)
with her favorite
parental
pronouncement,
“Y
is a
crooked letter.”
Her disarming words
as inscrutable as
a kaballah spell
repetitively employed
in the hope
of confining
my untamed
anarchic sensibilities
within the
hard certainties
of the
alphabet.
Not to be
outdone,
my own
alphabetical weapons
have always been
(direct) action verbs,
laughing lettered
accomplices,
strategically invoked
verbal maneuvers,
for artfully dodging
the “ism”,
nimbly sidestepping
the “ist,”
and
eagerly embracing
the convulsive beauty
of the
“Y”.
A flock of
Why-words
Joyfully
taking flight
from the
sharpened tip
of the
critical crook
at the
overflowing end
of the word
anarch-Y.
Each why
the harbinger
of new
beginnings.
Inspired by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s response when asked if he was an anarchist. “On my best days,” he said with an honest modesty. To paraphrase Ferlinghetti, I am a poet “on my best days.”
Ron Sakolsky publishes Oystercatcher on Denman Island, B.C.
