and sometimes I’m sitting, quiet, <br />wondering whether a poem somewhere <br />would like to speak through me <br />and it doesn’t <br /> <br />but the stillness as I wait - <br />that’s good. <br /> <br />Then just occasionally, when <br />I’m not visited by a poem, <br />I visit – without planning - Poetry. <br /> <br />It’s a place without a name <br />where many things meet: <br />there’s space, and hope, <br />and possibility, and, out of the present, <br />a future growing.. <br />and something that’s not less, or <br />not less bright, than gold; <br /> <br />where all the poems that have been written <br />mix on friendly terms with those <br />that are yet to come; <br /> <br />with a sense of company, humanity, <br />very undemanding, and what Pooh Bear <br />would call, Everybody Listening… <br /> <br />and there’s no claim, no need <br />to write about I Was There <br />and Experienced This, and do you wish <br />you had too, and here’s my name <br />so modestly after a line space <br /> <br />and it’s very refreshing, even <br />reassuring in its way. Maybe <br />if we were back in, oh, Greek times? <br />I would wash, put on a white robe, <br />take a sweet cake, some oil, some wine, an olive branch, <br /> <br />walk slowly up to the temple, <br />tap the road dust off my sandals, <br />then between the cool pillars, <br />place the offering at the feet <br />of the golden goddess; silent <br />somewhere between thanks <br />and praise and the place called prayer; <br /> <br />and then I’d return home, peaceful <br />as if blessed. A more poetic image? Perhaps <br />it’s the same place: the mind <br />was there, the body’s here. <br /> <br />It’s good. You were there too.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-not-writing-a-poem/
