(composed while listening to the Grateful Dead’s concert in Veneta, OR, 8/27/1972)
Look…my next poem, loitering around the next bend!
I’ve learned how to sense it each time it’s there -
each time I fear that poetry’s come to an end,
along with the muses on which all poems depend.
I turn the bend and find that dusty stair.
It’s like a faithful, playful dog that’s gotten lost,
and it’s just part of his game that I shall find him -
never mind the time and effort it’s cost
to recover him from apathy, filth and frost…
or the big ensuing vet bill. Never mind it!
Cuz there it is - the poem that took the place
of the mountains I’ve always made of my molehills;
and there they are - the lines that my metric mole drills.
The mind recovers itself in its face
and empties out in this framework that the soul fills.
[Previous: Nobody Again but Me]
[Next: Pesky Tedia]