Keeping Things Whole
![A field. Emptiness and wholeness. Trey Ratcliff: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/3664680772/](https://ashleyperez.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/k2_items_src_e9c724eeb5636d1c1c1a2c2e85d40377.jpg)
A field. Emptiness and wholeness.
Today, I treat you to a favorite poem by Mark Strand, “Keeping Things Whole.” It goes everywhere with me in the pocket of my writer’s notebook. It’s mostly memorized. I still remember where I was sitting when I first read this poem. I was in a Parlin classroom on the UT-Austin campus, and spring was coming. There was construction going on outside. I could hear a squirrel, and the poem made me cry.
Keeping Things Whole
In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fil the spaces
where my body’s been.
We all have reasons for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
Visit this poem and others at POETRY OUT LOUD.