Poetry in life

©2015 The Golden Dusk Photography

I am a poet. That is who I am. I remember when I wrote my first poem, I was probably seven. I had the thought suddenly: "I'll write poem! I think that would be fun!" 

I have not stopped writing poetry, I never will. But I have begun to see that poetry is not necessarily a form of writing. It is everywhere. It is in the rhythm and rhyme of the seasons, of the graceful bound of a young deer. Life can be a poem too, but sometimes, in order to see these little bits of poetry that are everywhere, you have to be a poet. That, I believe, is essentially who a poet is, someone who can see and recognize the hidden and not-so-hidden as well as the obvious poetry of life. And it is a only a good poet who can translate those poems they see in life into a form that will be more easily recognized as a poem. That may be in a form of writing, in music. There are many forms that a poem can take, but a truly good poet is one that can take those subtle bits of poetry in life and form them into something that even the most unpoetic person can recognize as a poem. That, truly, is who I think a poet is.

I do not consider myself a truly good poet, only someone who is working towards the goal of becoming a truly good poet.

©2015 The Golden Dusk Photography

So gracefully free
You leap over the clover
Running beautifully
Your steps light as air

How you got here
It is a mystery
But run away soon
My beautiful deer

Above is the poem I wrote when a deer came somehow to the middle of the city where we lived. People were chasing him and scaring him, and I hoped that he would soon go to wherever he was going, free.