POETS, TALKING

I could wish poems happened more, but wanting them
only leads to the impediment of desire and desire
is never equal to the act. It’s much the same as looking back,
expecting a story and finding the characters already dead.
The surprise of that. How the past gets worn down by idle use.
These days the poem comes much as the first bat does
in the false dawn. Its flight the mental stumble that I love.
I have my hungers even as they elude me.
Things are so simple, a bat, and the consequent moth
I create to keep my world whole a little longer.
The poems come to me now as then, occasions, the good ones rarely.
The moth, its wings so white they startle me, escapes.
For the moment. I watch the delicate violence of the dance,
the bat, and the moth too, veering.

~ ~ Patrick Lane