Writing What You Know

Writing What You Know

I used to write
spare and clean and bitter,
clipping joy from an otherwise wasted day
and placing it,
a single rose, in a vase
on an empty shelf.

My poems were ruse and bribe
for the gods who recognized
moral superiority in orderliness
of countertop and mind.

More than that, poetry
extricated life from chaos,
pounded into the ground the stake that said:
“This day I have begotten thee.”

Then, by miracle or maturation,
I began to live the haiku
of dishes stacked steaming in the rack.
No. Bowls.Blue and white. Blue and white.
I the subject, not the object, of my life.

I used to write to curse the darkness.
Maybe I could write-- the idea glimmers--
to celebrate the light.