Jean Toomer Poem by Hans Ostrom

To write so beautifully then
withdraw from writing—
quite a gesture, as if
the magician disappeared
but the trick endures,
the cape
hanging on air, the cane
upright on its own.
You moved along illusory lines
where color disappears
like sawmill smoke at dusk.
You slipped through seams
of social wrappings.
You built your body, prose,
life with sure discipline,
cool will, freedom.
“I have worked, it seems
to me, at everything.”
We missed you, we miss
you, you are missed.
The vanishing act keeps
working. A good audience,
we go on agreeing to pretend
we don’t know
you’re hiding in CANE.