stop talking and write

Sometimes, I can't be trusted with a pen and paper -- or a keyboard, for that matter. I spill my thoughts all over the place, trying to make sense of things, and I forget that I'm not alone and that somebody might read what I wrote.

But that's ok. Those who know me will know I'm not being mean, just word rambling.

Words.

They seldom say exactly what we mean -- which is why poetry is the greatest thing going. Poetry doesn't tell. Poetry breaks apart the molecules of a thing and moves it two shades over and puts it back together again, slightly rearranged in someone else's reality.

It's said a poem  belongs only half to the poet. It isn't finished until it finds its home with the reader.

I haven't written many poems of late. But here is an old one that holds November. See if this one opens for you:

TO WRITE A POEM
Go back, time travel,
Make the world go still.
Roll up small; Condense
Until the world inside is large enough
To hold it all.
Essence writes itself huge
In a field where dreams form reality
(The true order of things),
November forms in tall weeds browning,
Combined dreams of children
Come here evenings,
Held in mist until
The sun believes itself into morning.
Keep your pen still
As reality offers a twisted similarity,
an almost.
If you mean it, hide,
Seek a hidden way,
Gain entrance through old dreams,
Nuance of indirect sunlight,
a wind whisper, a cold November,
Spiders desperate for hiding
Seek silent spaces in tall weeds browning,
Words pause themselves,
Preparing to winter-over.
Find one of the children you were,
With that wisdom transcending
All you've since learned,
Aim at chill air and evening,
Family waiting a woodsmoke away,
Aim at prolonged endings of evening,
(inside light windows, it is already night)
Keeping summer,
The spider has waited too late,
You -- wait only enough,
Aim at keeping with words
What you never mean to lose.

(d Kate dooley -- 1998)