seven impossibilities

s e v e n   i m p o s s i b i l i t i e s

 
that gossamer leaves of butterflies
can move against the wind.  they do.

that people will see their lives like stars.
light is just this genuine.

that fish will fly and birds will swim.
see how easy it already is!

that loneliness is just a meditation
we forgot about.  take heart.
 

that moon and sea rejoice their marriage
tides.  in like kind, cleopatra’s embrace.

 
that poems are more than the script
they seem to speak.  you tell me.

that we will pass through the eye
of a needle.  we may.  we may.
 
 
 

neil reid © november 2011

 
in respect,
what did this poem teach me?, that’s the question I’ll address.  to begin, a simple theme, then came the seventh to write (as here, the stanza that stands by itself from the rest).  as I first thought of it (some different from here) it was not the same as the rest, being more the obvious statment of actual relationship, moon to seas.  I thought, I twisted the words, but it still came out the same that way.  too many thoughts (eventually also obvious).  then realized a better obvious – stop writing the poem and let the words, the language, determine their right place.  and if that place was indeed some different, then let it be, yet as here acknowledged, set the stanza slightly aside physically.  (writing not being so much about “making” as “allowing” from my point of view.)  writers I think need respect their language and that it has as much or more ability than the writer does.  although oddly found, once I’d let go of having it be right, meaning the same as the rest, it became more that way of itself.  funny how that works.

old axiom: writing is more about learning than the other way around.