“I have a lot of very serious things to do today
You can’t come”
And I walk down the stairs on my way to reality
But then I hear you thumping along behind me
Whistling a little tune
That rhymes and rhymes and rhymes
“Stop!”
“This is exactly why I’m leaving you behind
Now be a good girl
And shhhh
I have to do up spreadsheets
And an agenda
It’s all very important and I can’t have you smooching about singing poetry”
And there is no further noise behind me
And no warm glow in my heart
The way is cold and dark
And the tower echoes
But I walk down down down
Into reality
And I close the door carefully behind me
I don’t look up
For she is in the window waiting impatiently
Words tripping over her tongue
I don’t look up or she’ll wave at me
I don’t look back
Sever the chords
And spend the day attending to reports
But I will need her when I return home
Because my God
The business of being a human doing business
Leaves me lonely
*There are days when I don’t want to do what makes money. Days when I want to be a poet. And even though one could say well that’s easy, take the poet with you everywhere – some days I cannot.
Imagine taking a large affectionate Great Dane into a cold office. The office is white and non distracting, because you have to use it to work in. If there is a noise, all the very sensible people look over their glasses and frown.
The poet is noisy.
Left brain right brain thinking. Poetry gets in my head and sings. I cannot make it go away and the difficult thing is I love it so much that don’t really want it to go away. It is sunlight and purity and peace and church. It is creation, blowing bubbles out of nothing that turn into words and feelings neatly encapsulated like art. I never get tired of making that art. And, like a kindergarten child – I think it beautiful and just want to stare at it all day or make more, more, more. But the other half of my brain needs all of its shit together to go to a meeting.
So there are these two halves, at war. And discipline tells me that really, the difficult should triumph. But my soul says nothing needs to be difficult and that I make it so by thinking it.
And the war rages on
Between what is sensible
And what is beautiful
But if I die this afternoon, I would really wonder what poem I shoved out of the way, which poem I didn’t breathe life into and bring into the world – because I decided that some report was more important instead.
But it is more important
This
Precise
Moment
So…
Close the door, don’t look back
And pray she doesn’t get tired of waiting for me and instead go visit some other poet who treats her better and gives her the respect she deserves. Because she is the sound of my heart beating, if not my heart itself – and I really can’t do without her voice in this whit cold world. W
Written 7/4/22
