Confession: I am a Poet

I've been thinking. I know that is a dangerous thing to do, but I can't seem to stop myself. The brain just kinda goes that way. I have never been busier than now, since I retired from my day job and moved to Montana to be closer to our grandson. And yet, poetry flows from me like never before. I have been thinking a great deal about this passion within me, and wrote the following lines of prose. I am a poet. I have chosen a means of expression that makes no money and has few admirers yet many, many contributors. Thousands write; hundreds read. It may be the closest a writer can come to painting: each sketch, each oil, each verse is a private showing. A book takes forever to write. I know: I have two published, many others collecting dust waiting for me to get back to them. A poem is more like a snapshot, quickly taken, then selected and edited and offered. More precisely, poems are journal entries written both for ourselves and for sharing – our experiences, our observations, our thoughts, our feelings – our souls laid bare for the love of words. Why do we do it? We are curators who hang words on gallery walls in limpid museums in our minds, doors open to invite anyone inside who happens to be passing by, but no advertising budget to let them know we are here. At least we are not closed Mondays.