Unimportant

I look at some of the things

I’ve had to write about recently –

and I have had to write about them,

or else: why even be a poet?

Things like my father’s suicide,

or the strangeness of a lifetime of separation

from my family.

And I think:

no wonder I’m not writing

whimsical pieces of fluff and la,

or fast-paces comic poems

exploding with rhyme.

It’s in this frame of mind

that I pick up the latest Billy Collins collection,

but instead of helping me lose myself,

his wistfulness lights my short fuse.

Can’t you write something with a bit more impact

than a gentle breeze?

While you were looking at a bird,

drinking a cup of tea,

or ruminating on an early morning,

did Fate never stab you in the back,

and then push you down the stairs?

Apparently not.

I scribble words,

use brackets and crossings-out,

draw arrows, mark insertions,

erase the obvious misfits

and, courtesy of some rewrites,

arrive at an ending.

What a relief

to have been exercised about something

so unimportant.

I return to the collection and read a poem.

‘What a Woman Said to Me After a Reading in Nappa Valley’,

and lose myself in wistful poignance.