Premature Delivery In Astor Hall (Laboring Between Patience and Fortitude)

In my head, I’m in the library, at a podium, before a microphone, looking out into the faces of a yearning sea of people, knowing they expect a little kindness but mostly, a lot of answers from me. Beyond them, on the far wall, there are words carved in the marble framed by columns that reach desperately toward the Beaux Arts detailing on the ceiling. I clear my throat and hushed conversation evaporates into thin air as if this great hall was a veritable black hole of a misapplied lexis. Like a woman being asked to re-birth a child, I stand there wondering how to present that which made its way into the world, of its own accord, some years before. They want me to pick the words up off the page and deliver them to their ears, their minds, their very souls. They want my poem to grow then inside them as if they were surrogate parents, mothers, fathers, capable of ensuring it would become what it was meant to be. But, I, mute, am standing there thinking they are not me – and this, my words, my poem, they may see… but cannot have. I open my mouth, to open the poem, (against my own better judgment) and feel a rush of words surge up and into my throat- not the being they think they know, not the child they’ve come to meet, but a bastard infant, not yet fully formed, begging to be birthed in reverse, through my mouth from the very soles of my feet. Suddenly, I want to tell them to stop and smell the stars to gaze endlessly at roses to live, passionately, fervently but never ever vicariously, to bleed themselves out into the world and to suck life into their souls as if their entire existence depended on it. I want to implore them to open their damn eyes and to listen and to believe and to dream and to BE and to stop just stop expecting poets to give them answers and painters to landscape their visions. I want to tell them they’re not even half what they might be, could be, should be oh, and CAN be – but mostly, I want to make them understand that I couldn’t possibly have their answers if only because they are not me and I am. I stand there, silently, now awkwardly, looking out at them and wondering who the hell they are… and a moment later, when they begin to squirm, and whisper, and look uncomfortable and maybe, even, start wondering the same damn thing themselves I begin to read.