Caught

I am not alone here.

Fragments of unwritten poems

drift before me,

ghosts begging for language

to give them form.

Some try on tattered clichés,

parade by me like orphans

in worn out hand-me-downs,

hoping for pity.

This task seems

harder than clothing smoke,

tethering clouds to trees

or giving the evening breeze a face.

I should refuse,

tell them to haunt someone else,

these waifs who taunt me

like hungry cats.

Too late. I am caught in their familiar trap.

They believe I can conjure breath from stone,

can weave gold thread from milkweed fluff,

see the moon in my left eye,

the sun in my right,

hold fire in my bare hands

if the stars allow.

They compel me to dress them

in words spun from imagination and luck.

Finally, I have to let go,

trust that I have given enough.

They are, after all, wild spirits

who, century after century,

find poets who will weave words

into any form they desire.

© Jean Sampson

Milkweed fluff
Photo by Tony Russell