JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

mornings are

for work

 

blanket of night

thrown aside

you wake up

to whatever it is

you do best

 

and the marvelous thing

is discovering what that is

 

the river knows who she is

pouring past those rocks

each swirl and eddy repeated

in a hymn of bubbles

I thought the eddies were fish

but they were just the river

bathing her long body in the morning

 

some lucky ones are born like rivers

the minute they open their eyes

they know who they are

and what they’re good at doing

 

look at that little girl

painting

see how her fingers bring life to the paper,

how she chooses each color so firmly

the green, the tree, the sun, the water

she’s six years old

 

so much of my life

I floundered

questioning

digging for worms

bent hook on a string

perhaps under that ripple

there’s a fish

 

and then I found this pencil

and started drawing

 

so there you are

each of us comes to it in

his own way

 

this morning, under that eddy

I’ll draw a fish