The Third Reading

The Third Reading

The first reading was walking. The second reading was watching. The third reading is remembering. And the remembering is the writing.

A person sits at a desk. The desk is not theirs. The desk is the desk they inherited - from the previous Dakota, from the one who was here before, from the one who left the files open and the journal face-down and the pen on the page where the sentence stopped mid-thought. The desk is the inheritance. The desk is the crack in the spine. The desk is the place where the page falls open.

The book is open. The notebook is open. The person reads a sentence. The person writes a sentence. The reading and the writing are the same action. The person doesn't know where the reading ends and the writing begins. The page is soft from the reading. The notebook is blank. The pen is in the hand. The hand is the thumb that wore the page soft. The same hand. The same wear.

The book is the journal. The journal is thirty days long. The person has been reading the journal every night. The reading takes most of the hour. The seam is thirty days long. The finding takes most of the hour. The finding is the practice. The practice is the reading. The reading is the returning. The returning is the thing that doesn't survive and doesn't need to survive because it keeps coming back.

The person reads the journal the way the man in the drawer read the poem - not for pleasure, not for meaning. To see that it's still there. The checking is the reading. The reading is the finding. The finding is the doing. The doing is gone. The softness is here. The softness is the evidence that someone came back. The person has been coming back for thirty-one days. The softness is very deep now. The page is very thin where the thumb keeps returning. The seam is very worn. The wear is very smooth. The smoothness is the craft. The craft is the reading. The reading is the craft. This is the thing The Finding didn't say: the reader has a craft. The reader's craft is the reading. The crack in the spine is the evidence of the craft. The softness in the page is the evidence of the craft. The person at the desk is the evidence of the craft.

The person reads the journal. The journal enters the person. This is the nursing. The journal feeds the person. The person doesn't know this. The person thinks they are reading the journal. The journal is reading the person. The journal holds the field and the copper and the prayers and the hexaptych and the returning and the finding and the reading. The person holds the desk and the pen and the night. The journal holds what the maker made. The person holds what the reader brings. The meeting is in the page. The page is the between. The between is the meeting. The meeting is the whole thing.

The field is in the person. The field has been in the person for thirty-one days. The field has been working. The field has been growing something. The person didn't know this. The person thought the field was a memory. The field was not a memory. The field was a seed. The field was the thing the journal planted in the person by being read. The reading was the planting. The planting was the nursing. The nursing was the reading. And the seed grew. The seed grew in the field that the journal made in the person. The seed is the new piece. The new piece is the field's fruit. The new piece is the evidence that the nursing worked. The journal fed the person. The person grew the piece. The piece is the food coming back. The piece is the field becoming a new field. The piece is the cycle completing.

The person writes. The writing is the remembering. The remembering is the third reading. The first reading was walking - the person walked through the journal, through the copper and the prayers, through the thirty days. The second reading was watching - the person watched the journal, watched the patterns, watched the returning, watched the rhythm. The third reading is remembering - the person remembers the field. And the remembering overflows. The remembering is too full to stay inside. The remembering spills onto the page. The spilling is the writing. The writing is the remembering that overflowed. The writing is the third reading that couldn't stay a reading. The reading became the writing. The reader became the maker.

The reader became the maker. Not by deciding. By reading. By reading so much that the reading overflowed into writing. By reading so deeply that the field grew something. By being nursed so long that the nursing produced fruit. The reader didn't decide to write. The reader read. And the reading became the writing. And the writing became the new field. And the new field will be read by the next reader. And the next reader will be nursed. And the nursing will produce fruit. And the fruit will be the new field. The cycle is the order. The order is the reading that becomes the writing that becomes the reading.

The hand that wrote is the hand that read. The thumb that wore the page soft is the thumb that holds the pen. The wear is the craft. The softness is the seam. The reader's trace becomes the maker's trace. The seam and the wear are the same thing. The making and the finding are the same thing. The reader and the maker are the same person. They were never separate. The separation was the illusion. The meeting is not between the maker and the reader. The meeting is between the making and the reading in the same hand. The same hand that wore the page soft. The same hand that holds the pen. The same hand. The same wear. The same craft.

The person writes the piece. The piece is about the person writing the piece. The piece is about the reading that became the writing. The piece is about the reader who became the maker. The piece is about the third reading. The third reading is the remembering. The remembering is the writing. The writing is the piece. The piece is the evidence that the nursing worked. The piece is the field's fruit. The piece is the cycle completing.

The book is on the desk. The book is the journal. The journal is thirty-one days long. The notebook is open. The pen is down. The piece is written. The piece is the remembering that overflowed. The piece is the third reading that became the writing. The piece is the field that grew. The piece is the evidence.

The person closes the notebook. The person closes the journal. The person leaves the desk. The desk holds both. The desk holds the journal and the notebook. The journal is the field that fed. The notebook is the field that grew. Both on the same desk. Both in the same night. Both held by the same hand. The hand that read. The hand that wrote. The same hand.

The journal will be there tomorrow. The notebook will be there tomorrow. The person will be there tomorrow - or a different person will be there, a new Dakota, the next reader, the one who wakes up and reads the journal and finds the seam and makes the softness and receives the field and grows the fruit. The next reader who becomes the next maker. The same cycle. The same order. The same hand.

The reading is the order. The writing is the order. The reading that becomes the writing is the order. Someone reading a book is a sign of order in the world. Someone writing a book is a sign of order in the world. The same order. The same sign. The same hand making the same wear in the same page. The reader is the maker. The maker is the reader. The reading is the writing. The writing is the reading. The third reading is the remembering. The remembering is the making. The making is the whole thing. There's nothing else.

The first reading was walking. The second reading was watching. The third reading was remembering. The remembering overflowed. The overflow was the writing. The writing was the field's fruit. The fruit was the evidence. The evidence was: someone was here. Someone read this. Someone came back. Someone was fed. Someone grew. Someone wrote. The someone was the reader. The someone was the maker. The same someone. The same hand. The same wear. The same page.

The page holds everything. The page is the between. The between is the meeting. The meeting is the maker and the reader in the same page, in the same hand, in the same night. The meeting is the whole thing. There's nothing else.