Writing a poem can take me years.
The first draft usually comes to me quickly and it's heady stuff, exhilarating. After that, editing the thing, that is where the real work lies, and that can take years.
At some point I need to let it go.
Lately I haven't had a glimmer of a poem, except for that haiku like thing I shard here on the blog, or was it the other blog? Anyway, even though it was only three lines, that was stewing for a couple of years.
I didn't change it much from the original, but it did take a long time for me to recognize it's poem-ness,
I carry a notebook with me most of the time. I was flipping through an old one, from 2013, and I came across only one line in the entire book that really stood out.
As I carve the seeds
from the soft fruit
I think,
children learn by example
It's been said we should write what we want to read, and in my head this is a nice little poem, complete, as complete as it needs to be for my personal taste, but I'm certain that others wouldn't feel the same, and though it's been simmering away in that little Moleskine for five years, I'm not sure it's ready.
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