poems come to me

 

Where do poems come from?

poems come to me:

sometimes like dreams,

from out of nowhere, it seems,

yet they know me

and shake me out of a daze

to deal with a reality 

that demands I notice it,

often it’s a death, a loss,

sometimes like a shape

just at the edge of the mist around me

that I feel more than see,

when I move toward it,

my eyes pull it forth, recognize it,

and I can hold it with my pen,

a way my self works to understand

where I am and where everything else is,

and how I feel about it all,

often, for a poem, I first ground myself

in the natural world around me,

where every flower and rock and touch of water

can be my center,

and by describing them I find that within myself

that needs to work itself

through my heart and head,

and onto the page,

sometimes poems don’t come to me,

but a photo does,

sometimes I just need a doing,

an action more true to the now than words,

I look at my watch

and see it’s time to go cook supper. . .

the fried chicken was delicious.

by Henry H. Walker  

April 2, ‘21