A Younger Poet's Reply Poem by Fred Rik Kesner

'Younger Poet's Reply'


I hear what you say about self‑inquiry,
how it begins without announcement,
but for me it arrives in small shifts of light,
a sense that something in the day
has turned its face toward attention.

Solitude helps, though not in the way you mean.
It opens a quiet field where patience
moves at its own pace.
Criticism lands gently now,
not as correction but as a way
to understand where the line wants to go.
Love & distance feel less like spacing
and more like a rhythm I'm learning to keep.

Sadness as transformation still surprises me.
It changes the scale of things
before I know it's happening.
Childhood memory moves beside me,
steady as breath,
while art & nature keep offering
their unhurried conversation.

I'm not sure where this leads,
but I can feel myself becoming.





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