! Remembering The Future Poem by Michael Shepherd

The Greeks said, those great Muses
who civilise us, grace our dance of life,
were once, before they were nine,
just three; and before that,
only one was named: and she was, Memory.

Does that make poets just regurgitators
of what’s already been oft said -
and better, too, some would aver…?

No, it’s more subtle than that; ask a poet:
a poem that comes warm, hot, from the human heart
demands a summary birth; won’t hang around
while you go out to buy more toys and frills
to hang around the cot…

it is indeed, more like remembering:
as if you step into a timeless place
where all that’s needful is to remember
what the future poem shall, will, have said..

write it down; and maybe sleep on it;
when you wake, you may remember
two lines somewhere which you’d forgotten,
but know exactly where that is…

That Muse of memory will then decide
whether a poem that has a timeless birth,
may have a timeless life... or not...

How can a poet claim a poem as his, or hers,
when such a Muse? and yet, so close at hand?