last days of the poet
Posted: October 30th, 2016, 10:28 pm
I lived in a word
and the word lived in a poem
the poem then as the source
of all things, the word as a voice
that moves through what we see
the poet arrives somewhere
in the middle of nowhere
and everywhere
so there is no beginning or ending
there is only a point where we come in
and go out, what happens between
is like trying to hang on to the wind
blowing through the trees,
or like trying to grasp what descriptions
of what is called unknown really means
the poet is not here to write the unknowable
if the poet recalled enough past lives
they might be able to make a poem that
gives some feeling to this wondrous
incarnation, give some continuity of wonder
alas, that would be like painting a candle flame
with a brush dipped in the color of the sun
the last days of the poet are like remembering
a song your mother sang to you
before you were born
it is like remembering a poem
that you once meant to write
but the words floated away
through a cloud of stars
before you could put them on paper
the last days of the poet are like that empty paper
and the word lived in a poem
the poem then as the source
of all things, the word as a voice
that moves through what we see
the poet arrives somewhere
in the middle of nowhere
and everywhere
so there is no beginning or ending
there is only a point where we come in
and go out, what happens between
is like trying to hang on to the wind
blowing through the trees,
or like trying to grasp what descriptions
of what is called unknown really means
the poet is not here to write the unknowable
if the poet recalled enough past lives
they might be able to make a poem that
gives some feeling to this wondrous
incarnation, give some continuity of wonder
alas, that would be like painting a candle flame
with a brush dipped in the color of the sun
the last days of the poet are like remembering
a song your mother sang to you
before you were born
it is like remembering a poem
that you once meant to write
but the words floated away
through a cloud of stars
before you could put them on paper
the last days of the poet are like that empty paper