MY POETIC LIFE








In every moment, I see poetry...during our walks each week, lines break and geese rise like similes into the stark sky...the children speak in modern haiku...his hand moves against mine in soft Shakespearian rhyme...the broken window is a metaphor, as is the curving trail they move on just ahead of me, and the tree's jagged skin...My eyes are blurred by iambs and enjambements...by how mundane and holy are the hollows and hills of my life.

Otherwise
by Jane Kenyon

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birchwood.
All morning I did
the work I love.

At noon, I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But, one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

--from Otherwise: New and Selected Poems, 1996--