Poetry for a Wednesday

A perfect poem to describe how it is going this year with my own poetry... it's not happening. The vagaries of struggling with the economy each day leave me emotionally unprepared to be creative. Another big thanks to Maya Stein, certainly my favorite poet!

permission slip

Determined, the writer looks at a slip of blank paper with hope

that she will know what to do, that in quick succession a string

of sentences will begin to appear, and these she will manage to rope

into beauty and order. But one by one, the paragraphs cling

to each other muddily, and the writer must choose between wrestling words

and the more difficult task of unclenching from her pen. She wants an anchor,

of course, the one she's so familiar with, to keep her tethered to her task, like bird

specking at a half-opened tin until the lid collapses. But sometimes work is just ardor,

and she has to release from the grip of her own good intentions, until she is lighter

than the paper even, until she can erase herself and let the pen write her.

~ Maya Stein