#18 What Songs We Sing . . .

What songs we sing when we are young;
poetry flies from us
like dandelion seeds in the wind.
Sometimes poems hide from us,
tucked away in unexpected places.
We catch glimpses, write,
or don’t write at all. Then, despite sadness or loss,
the great tragedies of life we all know,
we find poems everywhere,
in every flower,
every mourning, every rain storm,
even a sleeping cat or common cliché,
transformed by some way of seeing,
beyond passion,
not wisdom alone, nor experience,
but words in a certain order,
dancing to a rhythm that only we know.


This poem came after a very long and wonderful day, exploring Old Salem in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We were so tired tonight that I didn't think I could draft even another poem, yet this one came and connected right to this week's Sunday Scribblings. Note: the use of "mourning" is purposeful.