Through an oaken door
Down a corridor
I marvel at the children’s play
So animated and cruel.

The poet too observes with his pale, innocent eye.

I come to a noisy hall and open the second door
To a spacious room
Full of Summer light
A pine desk in disarray
With lined pages
And crumpled sheets scratched with choppy verse
And notice the poet dejected and howling from the corner of my eye.

The third door arrives after strange halls and hidden mazes
With guides in vast archive of
Manuscripts of the living and dead,
The poet stands silently filing papers
Like a man who polishes stones
Editing these Collected works
Scarcely noticing my coming or going…

Banquets and dissolution follow
Forgetfulness, lust and bitter dejection;
At last I come to the fourth door
And crack open to find an accomplished poet of some reknown
And swell to hear his voice:

“I stand in wonder before little things---
Breezes in the late evening branches
Bouquets for the memory
From sundrenched vaults of yellow---
Dreams that Summer’s heavy arm plows under.

I toss these scraps of paper to the ditch
With breach of regulation, well considered answer,
With definition, and vow,”
His word trails along the luminous orchard
To filter Autumn’s cider
Into a glass of Wonder.

Wonder before little things---
Ash and burning paper
Dissolving minute traces of Spring
Coiling near the park bench
Pastel ribbons flitter and flow away
On November’s winding, muddy water.

Spilling,
the deep green liquid
Holds fast to the cool frosted soil
The sun paints the blue
With cloudy white brushes.

No longer swayed in storming majesties,
The poet at forty is captive
To ribbons, twigs,
to Triune clover sustaining
Inspiration’s pool echoes tales
Of valiant days into richer speech.