It is difficult to get the news from poetry, yet men die miserably
every day for lack of what is found there.

—William Carlos Williams, poet and physician,
Sept. 13, 1883–March 4, 1963

•••

Within every problem is a poem,
and your job, poet, is to clear

away the excess and find the essence,
which is simpler than you imagine,

takes only breath and allowing your
focus to fuzz a bit. Maybe let your

top lashes rest on your bottom ones.
Then, allowing them to flutter

like new moths drying their wings,
without trying at all, see what you see,

make a note. Call it poem, if you wish.
Watch and wish it well as it lifts into

mere air without your assistance,
on its way into the who-knows-where,

powered by the who-knows-what,
as the who-knows-why it came to be

whispers into the dreams of trees
holding the tightly furled within

swelling buds, preparing a
great canopy of green, each leaf

to come a poem.