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Writing A Poem
When I want to, some thing comes --
whatever it is, I don't know --
and it might hunch at my feet
like a Holstein or a spotted potto
or play as if it's alive -- a fern spraying
finely into the air or a twig breaking
into a half-smile. It could, I guess,
move me all the way across
the room by dint of its strong will
and, if left to its own manipulations,
even create such a rumpus in my head
that I would at once require
keyboard or lamplight or some
other help to get it down, before I really
stopped breathing. At times it seems
to yammer like a laundry machine
from some foreign country, Persia or Peru
or Pakistan, and it can speak its heart and put it
directly (or indirectly) into me, with as much
ease (or difficulty) as when a crow mom inserts
the worm into the open mouth that is so full
of need. When I have the inkling that this thing
is coming, there's no need to rush: it will do
what it will do, in a matter of time, and make,
despite a brush fire of randomness
and lackadaisicality, a terrific sculptured
English hedge, a King's own. I have
little choice, in other words, in following
this thing's orders, and it's not always a matter
of sweet surrender to it – often it's fight, fight,
fight, down the home stretch. And it's a hell
of a lot bigger than I, I can tell you that –
as huge, in fact, as many worlds put together
and going strong into the brightest tunnels
of some of us and pummeling inside till we obey.
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