Poetry Is

the blank page and then the

poem spills out

inking out the event

setting it in stone or at least

in images and textures

leading the reader through all

the backdrops

the weather

the angle

the sound

the sigh

here is my point of view

exactly mine

every breath as it was breathed

every action as I would have had it be

here are all the juxtapositions and

damage

see all the ambivalence

touch all the uncertainty

here is how it was and how I lived it

not with headshots and poses

but in a sidling up sort of way

a Virginia Woolf talk about the vase of flowers on the table

not the person at the door sort of way

intimate everything

include all the layers

all the double entendres

and all the pregnant pauses

but leave enough sense

and content that you

have still made a

habitable space for your

gentle reader

who graces you with the

generous gift of their

fleeting attention

who affirms that you exist

who says for a moment

and just how did the light

respond when you lifted your cup?

Poetry is the place to take your

aching and breaking

and sit with it,

stroke its hand,

listen listen listen

until you find some stillness

and then quietly take

some pieces

place them here and there

in a spare and deliberate sort of way

like an ikebana arrangement

place all these disparate and

maybe disheartening fragments

balance them and polish them

leave them just barely standing

leave the tension of the possibility

of crashing intact

and then stand back

and objectively say

ah yes

as always

how beautiful is this life