As if Poetry were a Portal into Insight

I write with expectation, expectation

I will arrive somewhere more profound

than when I started with ‘I’.  Somewhere 

that cracks the walls of suffering

and lets in a little moonlight.  Somewhere

with vined walls, wood floors, Japanese pagoda

gardens.  Somewhere with words that render 

normal human experience absurd:

how we scramble to reserve campsites

in nature and get turned away for lack of vacancy 

and surrender to the city as if nature were admission

based.  Somewhere that captures the soul

cracking, revelations of Sufi poets, or burns disgusting

anger into the heart, imbued by Beats.  Or even 

somewhere that notices something small, something

unseen, something only poets have discovered:

a kitten with six toes, the whisper of rocks, a dying elm’s 

last wish.  Yet, by the last word, ‘I’ have not arrived

anywhere new; another beginning perhaps.  

There are lots of words, ink, covering the once blank

page.  And the only thing I can really say is: 

I’ve enjoyed this currant cream scone, slowly eaten

in between scratches of the pen, the sun splitting

the table in half, the cars whooshing by, and the muddy

taste of black coffee on this first November Sunday

morning in Minneapolis.