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Poetry Waits for Me

Poetry didn’t desert me
I deserted poetry,
left it to the elements of
popular opinion, negative reviews, and shrinking markets
until it faded to muted colors
that blended into nothing,
shades of gray left to whisper
save me
in a voice too soft to hear.

It frayed around the edges,
melting metaphors into
puddles of prose that froze my fingers
silenced a voice
I no longer felt original enough to share.

Similes refused to dance the hallways of my heart,
consigned, like rhyme,
to the dark
unmarked corners of my life

Poetry never came to me
begging for attention.
It never cared about being center stage
or cashing checks
or gold stickers guaranteed to land a book
on a special shelf at the library.

Poetry simply wanted
to be heard
to be remembered
to be consumed.

I wanted to be famous
or something close enough
to be remembered
if not for all time
for some time
time enough
to make my mark on the world.

But mark making is exhausting.

Eventually,
though I never said the words
give up,
I gave in
to popular opinion, negative reviews, and shrinking markets.
I shuffle-stepped sideways until
poetry and I were in different waiting rooms
without windows
waiting but not wishing
on endings that might or might not
be happy ones.

Poetry simply was,
simply is,
an experience
waiting to be shared
and in the sharing,
the consuming of poetry
both the poet and the poem
are remembered.

I give thanks to poetry
for being an expert waiter,
waiting for me to remember
how wonderful the world can be
when viewed through a poet’s eyes
and then shared
like a feast of favorite foods
for the world consume.

—Susan Taylor Brown

 

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