Whose Fault Is That

Every damn word I’d written in my entire life was meaningless

You’re not going to like the answer.

It was your fault, all yours.

Meanwhile, others found meaning

In those same words effortlessly.

Know why? They paid attention.

It’s a beautiful thing. Word-composing

Can be done without any success

At finding the meaning the composer

Dreamed of, aimed at finding

And still end up blossoming meanings

Like a meadow full of wildflowers

If the readers attend well. You don’t think

This is for real? There are so many writers,

Worshipped, half-worshipped, at least

Admired now, decades and centuries

After their deaths, who died distraught

At not finding the meanings they hoped,

And there are some pretty bland

And awful texts that turned out to mean

A whole lot they never had intended.

Call it reader-response theory if you like

Labels like that, but the first reader

Was the author, the phrase composer,

And it’s not the reading, exactly,

So much as the act of sustained attention.

No such thing as a meaningless word

Compared to any of the rest of them.