Stevens' Picasso

Did you learn this in school,
this blue on blue
of blindness and guitar,

or was it what you saw
bent through your eyes:
that jangled empty sky

of fancy: that blue note
of light below
the shadow of the truth,

and was it always new,
intentional,
bending the strings to fill

our dreams with things that truly are
when played upon your blue guitar?

-Bill K. Boydstun

Stevens' Picasso is reprinted here with the permission of its author. The poem originally appeared in First Harvest.