There, There

The poem begins in a place –

A lake, a bed, a meteorological condition –

And then a person emerges.

 

Sometimes the person isn’t an “I,”

But is just a person observing nature.

I can’t write the nature poems

Because I have not spent enough time

Learning the names of living things.

Who needs a list of flora anyway,

Or the image of fauna doing something portentous?

 

Confession, though: I love the moment

In that Robert Hass poem where

The some-bird (gull? Swallow?)

Flies down close to the surface of the water

And marries its own image for an instant.

 

There’s often more to say about not being a poet

Than there is to say about not being anything else.

For example, why am I writing a poem

If just a few moments ago

I looked up the words “indolent”

And “indigent” just to make sure

That I’ve been using them correctly?

It must be true: I’ve used up

All the nouns and adjectives

I will ever know.

 

After the “I” becomes manifest, we get

Treated to a clue as to the motive force,

Which is usually forlornness masked

As the imparting of wisdom. If the writer

Is not an “issues” poet, we will be spared

Talk of genocide, mass graves, physical misery

On a scale unimaginable to the New Englander

Or Midwesterner whose book collection

Contains duplicates of every major title housed therein.

 

How many people will admit to skipping

Down the page, or skimming a number of

Same-same lines, just to get to the ending?

The meat, the wrap, the stuffed crust:

A couplet that could be boiled down to a platitude,

Burgeoning with heft – valu-packed

“Now with rhyme!”

Songwriters and sloganeers alike breathe a sigh of relief.

 

Have I captured anything? Has there been a risk?

Probably not. If you skipped to the end,

This is it.