A Time Without Doubt

You are not in the mood to write poetry this morning.
you are too empty. Your emotions are too vague, foglike
too elusive.

But you write anyway. This is how it happens.
You do the work, no matter what,
you lay down the words.
Never mind that it is skill over inspiration.
An acquired habit of saying something
even when there is nothing that needs saying.

It is nothing more than breaking the logjam,
this writing,
waiting for the fog to lift,
allowing yourself to savor this time of vagaries
before the sun comes and casts its painfully sharp relief.

At times, it is good to not see your scars so clearly.
To let the memories go, to banish your false critic to the fog,
and remember a time without doubt.

About this poem

Sometimes I am not in the mood. I write anyway, and something always bubbles up. I have my mind well trained, I think, even when I think it’s the other way around.

The photograph was taken behind my home in West Pawlet, Vermont.

Tom