When I write, it is as though a murmuration of swallows
has taken flight within my mind. I am stupefied and mesmerized
by words flying about in an almost geometric dance,
each word seemingly afraid to be the first to land upon my page.
It’s both a beautiful and frightening process,
but when the first letter of that first word finally alights,
something intense and magical happens:
the sky of my imagination opens up
like a storm cloud on a summer afternoon,
releasing a torrential rain of verse or rhyme.
My job is to run around with bucket in hand and catch what I can.
When the pail is full, I carefully pour it upon a page.
To approach this in any other way would drown me
in my own vain attempts at creativity.
When the pail is dry, I walk away, and the poem is born.