This poem has been in the works since the 1970s. Sometimes it takes a long time to discover what I feel like I need to say. In this case, I believe there is a mandate for all of us to help others along, sometimes with physical help like a little cash or food, and sometimes by pointing the way with the fact of your creative life.

Image generated in Adobe Firefly by Scooter Smith.

We are all poets

Said the radiant figure in the doorway
Neatly sidestepping the issue
I thought

Well
Laugh at me if you will
You aren’t the first
Nor I completely unrehearsed
You see
I can play this game
And I came to play

We are all poets

Resonated again
Mocking me, I thought
Laughing at my wanting efforts
And pale works
In affront
To my humanly will

Yeah, we are all gods
Aren’t we?
Seeking a rise
Or some note of surprise
But the only reply

We are all poets

In rebellious reconnoiter
I suggested
If so
Maybe it’s for the best
We’re not tested
And then
There was nothing

No radiant figure
No door
Only me
Cranky
Impatient
Flailing
Fussing
Crying like a baby

And the golden figure
Moved
Or was it the door?
But then, I felt me on the floor
Dragging
Pulling
Scraping
My evolutionary path
Ever forward
As material grit
And earthly friction
Tore corporeal chunks
And reptilian funks
From my irrelevant bones

Not because I made it happen
But because
It
Made
Me

Until I cried out in agony

God!
What is this pain?
Why always more?
And the golden figure
Was gone
As was its beckoning door

And as if waking
I stood where I had crawled
And felt true
The words I had scrawled
But only knew why
When
Hearing a cry
Behind me
I turned
And said

We are all poets