Though I am heartened by the Sheenagh Pugh poem to which I linked yesterday, I acknowledge that Ms. Pugh wishes… she could divorce it. She feels she didn’t write it well enough, since some people read it as a piece of joyous and unalloyed optimism. She meant it more as “a good deal of the time things are catastrophically bad, but if only people put in a bit of effort, that can generally change,” but … we human beings can be rather black-and-white, with no shades of gray. And, as writers we know: we don’t get to decide how people read our work. So, let the words gladden you – sometimes nothing goes wrong. Or, let them remind you – usually, everything goes wrong, and we should acknowledge the bare few times they don’t. Words, once you find them, are yours alone… poets or no.
poets aim fearsome weapons
used as paper weights
…just don’t forget we make cement out of gravel.
“…cement out of gravel…”
I love that thought so very much.
Love the poem, but it’s the words around it today that mean something more to me.
“Words, once you find them, are yours alone.”
“…just don’t forget we make cement out of gravel.”
I’m writing these and sticking them to the wall above my desk.