! ! On Not Writing A Poem Poem by Michael Shepherd

and sometimes I’m sitting, quiet,
wondering whether a poem somewhere
would like to speak through me
and it doesn’t

but the stillness as I wait -
that’s good.

Then just occasionally, when
I’m not visited by a poem,
I visit – without planning - Poetry.

It’s a place without a name
where many things meet:
there’s space, and hope,
and possibility, and, out of the present,
a future growing..
and something that’s not less, or
not less bright, than gold;

where all the poems that have been written
mix on friendly terms with those
that are yet to come;

with a sense of company, humanity,
very undemanding, and what Pooh Bear
would call, Everybody Listening…

and there’s no claim, no need
to write about I Was There
and Experienced This, and do you wish
you had too, and here’s my name
so modestly after a line space

and it’s very refreshing, even
reassuring in its way. Maybe
if we were back in, oh, Greek times?
I would wash, put on a white robe,
take a sweet cake, some oil, some wine, an olive branch,

walk slowly up to the temple,
tap the road dust off my sandals,
then between the cool pillars,
place the offering at the feet
of the golden goddess; silent
somewhere between thanks
and praise and the place called prayer;

and then I’d return home, peaceful
as if blessed. A more poetic image? Perhaps
it’s the same place: the mind
was there, the body’s here.

It’s good. You were there too.