Poet Song

Deep down inside of me

forces are rising up,

but like the waves 

high and sighing in the distance,

always they must surrender to the strand.

I laugh at my creations through a veil of tears

and feel in my beginning that I have yet to begin -

each time my thinking dives away,

stays with itself, alone -

as vowed to silence.

Inside me poems lie on undiscovered shores

waiting for my silent landfall

waiting for my crossing of those inner oceans

filled with shoals and sirens' calls

for I am heavy with more than I give birth to,

my heart knows songs that I will never sing.

I am music of which I do not know the chords,

I am a pause repeatedly disturbing itself.

I am more than I am.

I cannot release myself.

A paradise lost lies inside me.

"Poet, do you keep on weighing sounds,

intangible as mirrors without smile or line?

Contemplate no more,

be warrior instead.

Rise up and stop this singing,

for the Spirit needs the silent ones.

Would She not otherwise have led the song?"

Vintage Photograph by Clarence Hudson White