The Muse sent me the second half of a poem. <br />So, I asked her for a beginning. <br />She continued to refuse this beginning <br />because she knows I am seeking a major beginning, <br />after so many endings not so quick to see <br />in the water, flashing, a quick strong minnow <br />silver backed and patterned. <br />So, I roamed my hills and botched my poem <br />as poets will, to where she started: <br /> <br />The poem WILD BOAR has to contain <br />the words PLOD, BRISTLE and ACORN <br />or anyway OAK. The poem HERON <br />must have at least three words from PRIEST, <br />PATIENT, LECTERN, GRAVE, LIGHTNING, <br />but a dig for remains of things <br />can never find a SHARD. <br />Is poetry a dig for remains? Not at all. <br />Is it a heron? Not entirely. <br />Is it a wild boar, glimpsed through woods <br />in a lifetime of clambering, <br />a frisson, this area dangerous <br />where the stag might shove, <br />birds attack or the black tick bore? <br />Is this poetry poetry? <br />Or not? “We are sorry to say” <br />but, truly, guardians of the visible, <br />overground world, you are glad <br />to protect your gullible personnel <br />from lightning and risk from contamination <br />by those who have seen wild boar. <br />Boredom is your metier. As little <br />must happen and as slowly as possible. <br />Poetry is the impossible art. <br /> <br />Well now, Muse, you infuriatingly Lesbian <br />and untameable arts administrator, <br />it's my turn to tell YOU something <br />as I wander home on my well worn path <br />through the spring woods, primroses, <br />coming bluebells, <br />prostrate bracken, <br />about-to-disappear snowdropp leaves, <br />moss and stones and mud <br />down onto the tarmac. <br />I can finish this poem myself. <br /> <br />2010<br /><br />Sally Evans<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-poem-wild-boar/
