A Year of Poems - The End.

I've been a poet,
An entire year.
In three hundred and sixty five posts,
I've expressed the ideas,
Filling my mind,
Inspiring me to write.
Making me desperately sad.
Or with wonder,
Lifting my heart,
And making it light.
Poems that flowed like a song,
Onto the page.
Others I penned,
Feeling hurt and outraged.
Sometimes I was pondering,
The ills of the world,
And sometimes the hurts,
And insults were hurled.
To ease my own suffering,
I wrote and I cried.
But then in my enjoyment,
Frivolity bubbled inside.
Sometimes it was a chore.
But sometimes...
I wanted to say more and more and more.
Write to a friend,
Cryptic messages send.
Express my love.
Express my joy.
Be outlandish,
Or subtle or coy.
But to my heart,
I have been true.
And these poems,
Are my gift to you.
Oh the rapture,
Oh the pain...

Perhaps one day,
I shall do it,
All again.

The Songwriter

I am learning his song.
Recorded in a hospice.
He was a songwriter.
Which really means,
He was a poet.
I could see him in his lyrics.
I could feel his pain, his optimism,
And the love he had for his wife.
I could feel his gratitude,
For the opportunity to reveal himself,
So publicly.
No truer portrait,
Than this self portrait.
Each time I tried to sing it...

The poignancy of the last line,
Caught in my throat. 

Pruning and Poetry

I write, he prunes,
The Granny Smith, the fig, the lilac bush.
Pruning, like writing poetry, is a solitary and reflective occupation.

This precise word placed exactly,
Here,
Will it replicate the image I have created in my head?
Evoke the emotions fruiting in my heart?

A cut placed precisely,
Here,
Will it transform this tree into the perfect bowl,
He has mentally conjured in his head?
Has he left enough new wood,
To bear the fruit of next Summer?

The music of words.

My poor, right dominant brain,

Often finds it hard to find the word.

I know the word I want to say,

I see its picture in my head, 

But sometimes it just will not come to my tongue.

So I swear instead.

Or that is my excuse anyway.

Yet when I hear music I can hear the words in it.

Like magic, new lyrics come to me.

I can write songs like that.

I hear musicality in a phrase.

It awakens the pictures in my head,

And I'm off,

Writing another song.

 Or another poem.

The Salve

It is the paucity and precision,

Imagery and metaphor,

The musicality and lyricism,

Honesty and sentiment,

The mindful persistence,

Of well crafted, thought provoking words,

That make a poem,

A salve to the soul.