How to Write a Poem

Poetry

Photo by Calum MacAulay on Unsplash

How to Write a Poem

~after John Guzlowski

Stop trying to write a poem.
No one reads poetry
except poets looking for words
to steal, or people still
learning how hard it is
to heal.

Find your quiet place.
It’s not the beach,
or the park bench,
or the state forest trail
with its scents of tree bark,
dead leaves and damp,
its sounds of river, of bird, of ground.

It’s somewhere deeper down.
Where the memories emerge
like the first bright flecks
of butterfly wings, yellow
breaking their pupa’s shell,

and you find yourself
still enchanted by the prospect
of holding a stick
shaped like a gun,
or the warmth of your mother’s cheek
pressed against your own.

Have you found it yet?
Keep looking.
It’s there.
It’s there.
It’s there.