Poets as Friends

I found myself

between the lines of Dickinson, Emerson

And Whitman too. 

I learned to choose words wisely from Mr. Frost

Himself.

I became friends with all the greats

the minute that I chose to write alongside 

their own journals.

If you want to get to know me,

flip through the pages of my dog-eared books,

Stop

At the ones that are covered in tea, 

I mean tears.

Let your eyes drift across the margins

that are anything but empty.

Tap into my brain,

notice the pools of ink where I stopped writing

to think.

More and more about what my friends meant,

Or didn’t mean.

What is the significance to the rest of the world?

And then to me?

Poetry has no limits explained Robert Hass to me, 

he took Basho and manipulated the words

like clay 

into forms that I could try to understand.

“Summer is over, and / we part, like eyelids, / like clams opening”.

Hearing Hass read me his grand discovery,

changed poetry for me. 

Poetry is not about him or her, he or she, they or them.

Poetry is about you.

And who you want to be. 

So lose your old self while shuffling

through the maze made by your

newfound friends. Let go and let them lead you to

A new light,

A new life.