The Emptiness We Require

A few years ago, I entered several notebooks and photographs in The Sketchbook Project.  In 2012, I sent away for another moleskine book.  I had previously written a poem that I thought would paradoxically work with the topic “Fill me with Stories.” I made a book using very simple line drawings and printing.  I can’t recall why I didn’t send the book in.  Instead, I kept it and found it again the other week while I was straightening out old sketchbooks and notebooks. Here it is.

The Emptiness We Require

We were empty of ourselves at first

part of sky and sea

feather, rock and sand.

We were sun and moon

lion and ant

wind and snow.

Then we learned our names

and felt alone.

Ocean no longer flowed in our veins

and we hunted the lion and elephant.

Now we are in need of stories

particularly those of love

that fill us with the emptiness we require

to encompass more

than we imagined our lives to be.

–Lily S. May