There's a Poem Here Somewhere
When I was barely 22,
a bearded graduate student
at an Ivy League college in New England,
I met with my poetry advisor,
one fine autumn day,
both of us wishing we were somewhere else,
perhaps a small fishing village in Portugal
or a smoky jazz club in New York.
I showed him my poem,
a one-pager on onion skin paper
and waited for his dim murmur of praise.
"There's a poem in here, somewhere," he said,
not quite shaking his head, but wanting to.
"No," I replied, "this IS the poem,"
but he, having long ago
lost interest in his wife, persisted.
Now it is 55 years later
and I finally understand what he meant.
Yes, for sure,
there is a poem in here somewhere,
a poem within a poem
and another within that
until the only thing thatremains
is my impulse to write
and the sound of a bird
outside my window,
or is it the creaking of my chair
as I stand to exit the room?
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