Sunflower Poetry

Recipe to make a poet:

• 1 part love of language
• 2 parts observational skills
• Equal parts clown, philosopher and quester
• heaping scoops of curiosity
• pinch of pain
• dash of stuff that leaves scars
• an ounce or ten of the stuff that ‘builds character’
• level serving of courage

mix in tears and sweat until a soft dough forms

put dough under pressure until it is compact

roll out until thin enough to see the words through

Allow dough to rest and reform to an organic shape

Bake in real life, with variations of hot to warm, and

periodically freeze, thaw and toss around.

Leave it to rest and pull apart to reveal poetry.

And what is left is the poet. Put this in a warm place.

Let it rise again and create more poetry.

~

Poets are like grandma’s mystery dough.

Lots of cool stuff with no real measure

except to do it until it looks or feels

just about right. Then add a pinch for

luck. Good luck, bad luck or no luck.

Each scar says, “I survived”. Each tear

says, “the wound is washed clean” and

each word born into a poem is alive

and stays alive as long as the poetry

is read, even after the poet has gone

and returned to dust, their pages

brittle and their hard drives dated.

~

I remember typing on my mother’s old typewriter.

I remember typing in the dark, each word so formed.

Click, click, click, space, space – hard return. Space.

I remember hand written pages, bound with a red

ribbon. I remember a first professionally printed book.

Each book mark a hand placed ribbon. Each poem

a pedigree. A footnote. A place in my heart that never

seemed to get crowded with them, but grew and grew.

Now the poems come faster than I can catch them.

And some days they don’t come at all. Those days

are the most frightening – have I lost my senses?

Have I lost my words? Then I rub an aching scar.

Then I see an old photo. Or touch a page. Read a

blog of someone’s poetry. And the muse is back.

~

A photographer takes the photos, catches the moments.

A poet is the one who writes the story on the back of

those moments in time. For one to see, for many or

sometimes none. Each blink a snapshot, a 1000 words.

Each 1000 words boils down, breaks down into what?

Poetry! The words that fill the spaces between each

photo in the stack. The words that fill the spaces.

~

Anthony has us talking about evolving as poets, our process or what makes us the poets we are today.  I don’t remember a time when I didn’t think in poetry or wish to capture the words in a certain order or frame to make the images in my mind visible in word form. In photo, and in word, it is a part of the fabric of me.  My husband used to say, and still does, if you want to know who I am read my poetry. I’m pretty open about things in poetic form!  Enjoy, and stop by dVerse to see what the other amazing poets have shared. And share your own. And leave some love. Be a part of our community in an interactive way.