Words On A Page Poem by Suzanne Hayasaki

Poetry is not a discipline for me.
Words are not my adversary.
I do not sit at my desk wrestling with them,
Trying to bend them into shapes
They would not take on their own.

I am no great lady of the Heian Era
Trained from girlhood to produce clever lines,
Punning and alluding and choosing the proper paper,
All to impress her empress or seduce a gentleman.

Nor am I Shakespeare writing to a patron,
Forced to flatter his supposed social better,
Using verses to put coin in his purse
When the plague kept him from staging plays.

Nor am I Emily, alone in her room,
Longing for a woman she could not love,
At least not publicly, with her family's blessing,
Left to find solace and sometimes ecstasy in her own poetry.

Nor would I be Whitman or Keats,
Luxuriating in words,
Or Thomas or Blake,
Burning in their own infernos.

And yet I respect them,
All of the minds that have come before mine,
Whether fevered or meticulous,
Whether published or private,
However I may feel about their work.

Nor do I expect many to read mine.
So why do I write?

The words come for me,
They tease me,
They lead me,
They cajole me out of my stolid logic
And tempt me down lanes in my mind
I keep fenced off most of the time.

And there, in this inner maze,
With no clear way through,
I am free to amble and enjoy the view.
Time slows and my goals are forgotten.

Words wait for me there,
Things I have read,
Things others have said,
Which I have pushed aside,
In pursuit of something useful.

I will not say they bring me wisdom.
I will not claim they light the way.
But I give thanks for each visit I receive
From the birds and the bees
That twitter and buzz in my private garden,
Making me feel like Emily in hers,
Or Shakespeare on his stage,
Or Blake at his most mystic,
If only for a moment,
Alone.