April Poetry: The Poem I Wanted to Write

In recognition of Poetry Month, and to celebrate our treasure trove of Orcas Island poets, Orcas Issues is pleased and honored to offer daily poetry during April.

The Poem I Wanted to Write

would have begun with simple words,
words with more heft than shine.

I planned to stack them neatly
like hand-cut granite blocks
that would outlast me and look, after a while,
like part of the land.

Solid words, placed carefully,
one on top of another with cracks
between them alternated so that nothing would shift
when the wind came up.

I would build a circle around you
with my words as you waited
and watched my progress, though you knew
you would stay only a while.

Maybe I would polish the inside surface a little.
Some blocks would start to look like pale marble.
Some would seem more like that shiny black stone you see
in an old cemetery, stone that doesn’t hold moss

even in the shade of a hundred years.
Once I had made a solid beginning,
I thought I would leave some spaces
where light could come in

and you could see outside the poem,
take in what was growing nearby,
know my words would hold the sun’s warmth
as late afternoon air cooled.

At last I would finish up, hang a hewn door
without a lock. I would build a roof
with a skylight for you to follow
moon’s journey across my lines.

Then, in the morning, as you left the poem,
you could turn and look back,
see where you had sheltered for a while
before you turned the page.

J. Bates