Composition Meant For Silence Poem by Dennis Ryan

Saturday afternoon, December 15, 2018 at 12: 20 p.m.; Friday morning, March 1, 2024 at 8: 38 a.m.

—this poem is for Amanda Onofrio, well deserving

When the feeling arrives,
I begin composition optimistically,

with the best of intentions
(bright colors) , meaning well,

but of late the poems you color
(this form you dictate) ,

have become predictably dark,
negative in tone, valence

and outcome, when, during
the throes of composition

I get down to the nitty-gritty
of relations, this composite portrait

whose beginning I can track back
to my first viewing Blue Dancer:

at that time, this, I begin to re-survey
the landscape, these chiseled surfaces,

only to regret what I've written,
and say 'I'm sorry' to thin air:

Woman combing her hair,
circa 1915, cast 1922: rendered

as concavities rather than convexities—
Archipenko used interior space

to visually link front to back,
inside and out, the head replaced

by its silhouette within which
only space exists—this empty space,

absence, silent thief. (I think you
would respond if you felt you—.)

This composition then, like so many,
is meant for silence—I can appreciate

even this now—creating meaning...
for silence? I'm never 100% sure.
宙時間