Doug Anderson: A Marriage

There is the infatuation with poetry,

the first publication, first book, first prize,

the dreams of fame and universal importance

and then there is the marriage to poetry,

the fading of the pheromones,

seeing the poem/self
 without makeup,

the darkened parts of the soul,

the fights, the breakups, the reconciliations,

the jealousy, the pettiness, and perhaps a divorce

brought on by an affair with fiction,

and then there is the second marriage,

the children are the poems, the books,

and they
 are difficult: they say NO, they are messy,

they are unpredictable, they don’t do as you say,

all that,
 and then there is the loneliness of poetry,

where you give it the freedom it desires,

live side by side with it, without demanding.

Then sometimes it blesses you with the unknown,

something fresh and tender, a wildflower
 by itself

among the rocks, a bird frozen 
to the bird feeder

on a cruel winter day, the hawk circling.

—

Copyright 2016 Doug Anderson.