Liberia, October 15

Swimming every day in the beautiful sea. And here's a poem I wrote sitting on the beach. First poem I've written in years and years...using inspiration from my life here of sugar cane and wells and fishing nets and fish.

The Poem Fish

The poetry juice has dried up, she thought, like a

sucked out

sugar cane.

Writing poetry about a lack of poems seems futile

but it’s possible that

deep in the well

maybe

something

liquid awaits.

Waits to be re-membered and

drawn up – hand-over-hand, strenuously.

Inspiration won’t bubble up, unasked for.

Like any grail, it will sit out the ages until

it is

sought.

no hurry

no inner compulsion to advertise its wares to uninterested parties.

but

when a

light

is shone

down into the depths

something stirs and

waves begin to lap the edges of awareness

until a net might be cast down and a

fish-poem

gets dragged into the light.