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Here and Now

Write what you know

Poetry is pulling on the thread your muse offers you and then giving expression to your observations along the path. Everything in your experience is fair game, input from your five senses, emotions, memories, dreams, your imagination.  There is no need to pretend to be someone you are not when you have a massive source of material before you.  The trick is recognizing this abundance offered to you.

This poem started with a single image, a small bird I saw while on a walk.  The little one lay dead in a concrete gutter next to a construction site.  I was moved to pick her up and find some earth to lay her on.  A larger awareness opened up as I started writing from this experience.
 
Guide Them Home
 
Delicate green body
Bright yellow wings
 
The little one lay there
 as she fell
   in the gutter
 
I passed by
and a twinge
 smaller than this little one
   poked my conscience
 
A small prayer
 welled up inside from a deep, soft place
Up through the hard, dry, dusty concrete encrusting my heart
 
A small prayer of sympathy
A small prayer for the little one
 fallen
   alone
     in an empty place
a garbage place
a lifeless place

A small prayer for the little one
So far from her home in this world
  The green branches
So far from her home in the next
  The warm embrace of moist earth
 
The small prayer grew larger
 insistent to become
Forcing its way up through cracks in my indifference
Forcing its way to the surface
Forcing its way to become
 
And I knew
 It was not right to die alone
And I knew
 It’s not just a dead bird
And I knew
 This little one must go home
 
So I turned around
 now
   many paces further down the road
And returned to the little one
 secretly hoping to find her gone
   but knowing well she was still lying in the gray dust.

I uttered the prayer
 I cradled the tiny, stiff, delicate body
and placed the green-yellow being
 on Earth
   so that she may fly once more
 
So it is for all the little ones
 fallen on barren, man-made places
We must gently
 lift them
   and guide them home

 - Jose Enciso
Advice to Young Poets
by Martín Espada

Never pretend
to be a unicorn
by sticking a plunger on your head
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  • Home
  • Poetry
    • Persistence
    • Fire, Protest, Anger
    • Here and Now
    • Seeking
    • Awkwardness
    • Fatherloss
    • Healing
    • Harsh Truths
    • It doesn't have to make sense
    • The Troll
  • Blog
  • Listen, the book
  • STTF
  • Art
  • About & Contact
  • Appearances
  • The Funnies