Survive: Collected Poems

Creative Process

They ask me how I write poetry.
They say they've been trying
For years and that all they
Ever come up with
Is scratched out words,
Half sentences that go nowhere,
That can go nowhere,
And broken pencils.

I tell them I don't know
How I write poetry.
But as I explain it to them,
I realize I know more
Than I think I do.

Do you ever get to thinking,
I say, about a book you read
Or about the way
All of nature works together,
And suddenly you start to tingle?
It begins with following the tingling,
I say.
The tingling is your mind,
Your veins,
Your soul,
Brimming with ideas,
With stories,
With poems,
All this magic
To share with the world,
Even if you don't realize they're there.
We're all filled with stories to tell,
I say.
You just have to find them.

They exclaim,
Frustrated,
That they can't find them.

A part of me laughs.
But I don't laugh.
I know how they feel.
We always say in life
That we can't find something,
I tell them.
We tell our parents that
We can't find something.
Our keys,
Our shoes,
Our identities.
In our panic over not having this thing,
We miss what is right under our noses.
We grow up this way and expect
Someone to always find something
For us.
I tell them they must change the way
They speak to me, to themselves.
If you say you can't find your stories,
I tell them,
Then you will never find them.
Do not panic.
Ask yourself,
Where can I find them?
And then start to look.
They are right there,
Like the stems of lily pads
Right beneath the surface
Of the water,
If you only stop and look.
A lily pad does not just float.
It is connected to something,
And you can see it if you look.

Today, I tell them
How to find their stories.
Tomorrow, there are
Half a dozen new writers,
New poets,
New visionaries
Who will learn and grow
And change the world
Because they learned
The magic they longed for
Was within them all along.