so you want to be a writer?

if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

--Charles Bukowski

[Photo taken in Averøy, Norway]

The Death of the Bee

The biography of the bee
is written in honey
and is drawing
to a close.

Soon the buzzing
plainchant of summer
will be silenced
for good;

the flowers, unkindled
will blaze
one last time
and go out.

And the boy nursing
his stung ankle this morning
will look back
at his brief tears

with something
like regret,
remembering the amber
taste of honey.

--Linda Pastan

Since You Asked

     for a friend who asked to be in a poem

Since you asked, let's make it dinner
at your house-a celebration
for no reason, which is always
the best occasion. Are you worried
there won't be enough space, enough food?

But in a poem we can do anything we want.
Look how easy it is to add on rooms, to multiply
the wine and chickens. And while we're at it
let's take those trees that died last winter
and bring them back to life.

Things should look pulled together,
and we could use the shade-so even now
they shudder and unfold their bright new leaves.
And now the guests are arriving-everyone
you expected, then others as well:

friends who never became your friends,
the women you didn't marry, all their children.
And the dead-I didn't tell you
but they're always included in these gatherings-
hesitant and shy, they hang back at first

among the blossoming trees.
You have only to say their names,
ask them inside. Everyone will find a place
at your table. What more can I do?
The glasses are filled, the children are quiet.

My friend, it must be time for you to speak.

--Lawrence Raab

Messenger

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—

equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

 

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me

keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

 

which is mostly standing still and learning to be

astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium.

The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

 

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart

and these body-clothes,

a mouth with which to give shouts of joy

to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is

that we live forever.

--Mary Oliver

Bearing Witness

If I were not here

sitting at the kitchen table,

the wrens would still fly

back and forth,

caring for their offspring,

chattering in the bird bottle.

Unheard and unobserved,

these busy little birds would 

carry on their  domestic duties

whether I were here or not.

It would still be midmorning,

inching minute by minute

toward noon

on a fine summer day.

After that, there would be

a lull in activity--

fledglings sated, adult birds resting

--until the next feeding.

But soon the anxious time

will come when the young

must try their wings.

If I am not here,

who will bear witness to

their coming of age?

--Syndey Eddison

[Photo of fledgling House Wrens in Wallingford, Vermont]

The World Has Need of You

everything here seems to need us…
—Rilke

I can hardly imagine it
as I walk to the lighthouse, feeling the ancient
prayer of my arms swinging
in counterpoint to my feet.
Here I am, suspended
between the sidewalk and twilight,
the sky dimming so fast it seems alive.
What if you felt the invisible
tug between you and everything?
A boy on a bicycle rides by,
his white shirt open, flaring
behind him like wings.
It’s a hard time to be human. We know too much
and too little. Does the breeze need us?
The cliffs? The gulls?
If you’ve managed to do one good thing,
the ocean doesn’t care.
But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth,
the earth, ever so slightly, fell
toward the apple as well.

--Ellen Bass

Collection

Had it not been for 

a near-death experience,

I might never have discovered

this new way with words--

gathering them like seashells;

picking through the tidal debris

and selecting only the best;

rolling them around

in my head; arranging

and rearranging them in rows;

studying their shapes and colors,

their relationship to each other

and the effects of proximity.

As shells house the life 

of the sea, so words

house the life of the mind.

And in the time left

to me, it is what

I want to do--

sort through my collection.

--Sydney Eddison

Return to Yourself

Stillness is vital to the world of the soul. If as you age you become more still, you will discover that stillness can be a great companion. The fragments of your life will have time to unify, and the places where your soul-shelter is wounded or broken will have time to knit and heal. You will be able to return to yourself. In this stillness, you will engage your soul. Many people miss out on themselves completely as they journey through life. They know others, they know places, they know skills, they know their work, but tragically, they do not know themselves at all. Aging can be a lovely time of ripening when you actually meet yourself, indeed maybe for the first time. There are beautiful lines from T. S. Eliot that say:

'And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.'

--John O'Donohue

[Photo of Iva Baasch on Lough Corrib in Connemara, Ireland]

In the Evening

The heads of roses begin to droop

The bee who has been hauling her gold

all day finds a hexagon in which to rest.

In the Sky, traces of clouds,

the last few darting birds,

watercolors on the horizon.

The white cat sits facing a wall.

The horse in the field is asleep on its feet.

I light a candle on the wood table.

I take a sip of wine.

I pick up an onion and a knife.

And the past and the future?

Nothing but an only child with two different masks.

--Billy Collins

This Poem Belongs to You

This poem
belongs to you
and is already finished,

it was begun
years ago
and I put it away

knowing it would come
into the world
in its own time.

In fact
you have already
read it,
and closing the pages
of the book,

you are now
abandoning the projects
of the day and putting
on your shoes and coat
to take a walk.

It has been long years
since you felt like this.

You have remembered
what we all remember,
when we first begin to write.

--David Whyte

[Photo taken in Florence, Italy]

Out Beyond Ideas

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’
doesn’t make any sense.

--Rumi

{Photo of Wallingford, Vermont]