release the creator within

writing, as much magic as science

we English teachers can lose ourselves in naming,

in the pursuit of value and meaning in analyzed pattern,

in the hope that parts of speech and dissection of how a sentence works

can give the student the key to the mystery,

that such abstract form makes explicable

how words work to capture and reveal meaning,

I love to understand those abstract patterns myself,

beyond and below the concrete creation of the paper itself,

what bothers me, though, is that before and below it all

is a leap of faith that creates form from out of the ether,

and it’s that leap that is the sine qua non of writing,

I’d love to understand that leap,

yet I find it easier to believe in a muse

than in every individual writer mirroring God

in bringing order out of chaos, form from the formless,

I struggle to know when and how the mechanics are important,

for sure I believe that first we need to help the student 

find the spark and get it to flame true and sure,

then it can be time for the mechanics 

of how it can flame better, truer, fuller.

by Henry H. Walker

September 11, ‘15