Forgotten Words

It’s hard to keep on writing when you know your words never reach quite deep enough— fail again to plumb prosaic depths and render speechless those of greater wit and skill. But now and then I’ve managed, when struck with spasms of lucidity, to write of something tiresome as if it were brand new, and perspired, when each word would surrender, finally, chiseled as if from stone. All the chosen words, their meter, form and rhyme in tight procession, longing merely for convergent glow, and not to come to rest upon a shelf, to gather dust and fail to see the light again, when you’ve written your last word. Walking past the local used book store, you might see a box outside marked All These Books For Free. Reach inside and take one home and there reflect upon the author’s soul and listen for a distant voice, now stilled—the voice just might be mine.