I suppose

I suppose
it could be said
that
everyone lives life
behind a wall--

shut in and shut out;
that's just how
it goes.

And if
that's so, the question
is--
did we build the wall, or
did others?

And if
it was us, why, and
how high
should it be
and who given
the key;

And if
it was others, how, and
why so high--
and does the key
belong to them
or me?

But yet
does not the wall
protect, not
just exclude? Encircling
us like a cozy feather
boa--
unless they squeeze
too tight.

Poetry is the facet of writing to which I've devoted the least of my time. I did a fiction track in college; now, looking potentially at getting an MFA, I find myself ignoring programs' poetry scores altogether. When I want to express myself, I don't sit down to write a poem; when I'm feeling creative, my creativity almost always runs in the fiction or non-fiction bent.

(This is undoubtedly evident in today's poor showing.)

BUT, I was in a free verse sort of mood, and with no particularly interesting tidbits of nonfiction for you today, and without yet having found a way to incorporate fiction in a blog setting, I thought you might appreciate a momentary departure from the norm. And poetry (when done right, NOT as I have done) can be moving, rich, and absolutely wonderful to read--so I thought I'd pay a poor tribute to it today.

a poem, lost; inspiration, lost

Today's one of those days when I have neither anything important to report nor any inspiration to write anything else compelling.

And, in fact, even the poem I wanted to share with you, a lovely little gem called "Poem," by Douglas Goetsch, seems to exist only behind the firewall of the New Yorker website. It's great, beginning with an apparently casual discussion of finding the poem's theme (which he 'fails' to do, and says as much) and ends with a note made all the more poignant by the fact that you don't even see him building towards it.

But now, I can't even show it to you. I can just describe it, and urge you to try and find it on your own.

So, again, I find myself with nothing to say. So I'll stop throwing useless words into the void and let you get back to the rest of your lives.