If It Wasn't For Poetry

Sound of rumbling midnight train awakens young girl. The glow of nightlight invites her to soiree with poetic guests who, on inked pages, dwell. She accepts the invitation, propping herself on her elbows reading poetry till dawn. She befriends Dickinson, Frost, Teasdale, Elliot, and Thoreau, enamored with their magic weaving of words. Oh, how she longs to be one of them, a magician and weaver of inked tapestries. She writes her first poem, loosening her grip on her pen letting it wander about the page. The poem finds an entrance, each word tugging the other one along. She loses herself in the poem that wants to be written, impassioned. She stays awake many nights writing poems under the filtering moonlight streaming in her bedroom. She longs to have the eyes of a winged-angel, to fly and touch the stars, to find pure ethereal substances, to hear never-heard sounds, to see never-seen colors and shapes, to understand and express the imperceptible, to whisper to another soul, and to be a lantern in the darkness. A poet the young woman hopes to be. She grows into responsible adulthood, disavowing her passion for poetry, choosing to teach English instead, vicariously writing poetry through her students. Her heart aches with unfulfilled yearning. After 20 years, woman picks up her pen and writes a poem, fulfilled once again. If it wasn’t for poetry, her unfulfilled heart, might still be aching.