I’m always glad when I read your notes to the world.
—Julie Woodside

That’s what they are?
These little spit-up poems

that show up daily now,
arriving with so little effort

they can hardly be called
proper poems—not labored

over or crafted over days
or weeks or months,

as so many proper poets do.
If you say it’s a poem,

it’s a poem, I told students
for years. But they’re also

love notes to the world,
mostly unnoticed except by

those who need to find them—
like coral hearts that catch

the eye on a beach. Rough,
unrefined, a metaphor

of heart, a little love poem
from the sea right there

that you didn’t ask for
or expect.

But look at that—the gift
appeared for you. Don’t

hesitate to pick it up and
voice a thank you into

the always-there-for-you
air.

•••

(Thank you, Julie Woodside, for the kind comment and prompt!)