All Poets Need to Wander...

All poets need to wander
through the bramble and the bush
through the labyrinths of city streets
lost and listening
in a foreign land
till they find themselves
cast up—
upon the ragged edge
of some blank
and questioning page.

All poets need to wander
the untrodden routes
and unclocked byways
of memory
till they’ve shaken off
the familiar ways
the unexamined life
the way a dog
shakes off his sluggishness,
then bounds back
nto the scent of a place,
a time, a story.

All poets need to wander
through labyrinths of lines
saturating their pages
with cries and shouts and sounds—
black ink raging
against the sorrows that have no voice—
bestowing meaning where
there once was none,
bestowing blessings
upon the luminous
yet ravaged landscapes
of our lives.

All poets need to wander
through blackened pages,
red with wine and tears,
till finding the words that
allow us to hear
as if for the first time—
the sound of our one true voice.

All poets need to wander
lost and listening, till we hear ourselves say:
“And this is how it was for me”
then listen to hear how others too—
have caught the way: found a path--
seen how light has entered their lives
then left; how night comes,
and morning follows…
how different and yet the same
held together by
this one uncommon life.

All poets need to wander….

(c) janet fenn