Becoming A Poet
by Charles Kesler


When poets flutter
out into their deserts
made of memories,
made of thin membranes,

the sheer cliff boundaries
of brains, to find the mother-root,
and find only sand,
sand not perfect,

even sand untouched by tourists,
this is where the father-root
plays havoc with the poet’s
eyes, now you see him, now you

don’t, now you see an oasis,
now you don’t.
When the poets come together
in workshop they all,

they all shake their shoes
of sand and speak of
the desperate reaching for
the oasis that evaporates

before their beautiful
butterfly eyes.
This is how a butterfly
becomes a poet.








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