Poetry is

Poetry is a window looking out and a door leading in.

It is the steps cleared of snow, and then the walk.

It is the hollow near your heart that echoes.

Poetry is like small fishes schooling silver in the shallows, water and light and pulsing life that lives longer in the mind than in the hand.

Poetry is a clutch of small black birds noisily springing from the bushes like notes newly released from the sheet music of the day.

It is the whip-snap of sheets on the clothesline.

It is the green memory of spring to the fallen red leaf.

Poetry is the crow-shaped caa that pries me from my sleep and picks at the kernels of my dreams.

It is the derisive emptiness of choices.

It is you, alone in the kitchen at midnight cold, and you underwater, holding your breath with your eyes open.

Poetry is like my first son’s infant fist firmly wrapped around my finger, telling me in that initial moment, I am everything and I am nothing.

Poetry is like the turn-over of dried leaves skipping down the street, the rasping footfalls of the wind.