MOUNTAIN APPLE CIDER

One day some time ago, my muse
called me to her office and asked me to sit down
for a little talk.

I was living in an old shack in the middle
of a Carolina mountain apple orchard
at the time, and now suddenly here I was
in the Big Apple, fifty-seven floors up,
sitting across a desk from the executive
source of my inspiration.

"I understand you're not completely
satisfied with the poetry
you're given to write," she said.

"How do you know that?"

"Let's just say I have my sources."

"Well, since you bring it up, yes,
I'm no stranger to the dissatisfaction
involved in the poetry writing life."

"What can you expect, though," she said,
"when your literary lions are mostly marginal
bobcats that don't make it into the major
anthologies studied in schools?
Your most recent little poem, for example,
relates to an obscure minor poem by a writer whose
novels are at least somewhat acclaimed
but whose poems are generally panned."

"My dissatisfaction has nothing to do with
critical acceptability or recognition."

"Then what does it have to do with?"

"With the fact that whatever I write, no matter
how elevating it seems in the making,
ends up falling short and letting me down."

"Well, that's the nature of writing, isn't it?"

"I suppose so. It's just that there's a feeling
in the impulse that the expression of it
will be able to go all the way, that
the full moon is within reach."

My muse sat silent for a while, studying me.

"You know," she said,
"since the heavyweight literary scene doesn't
hold you in thrall, maybe it's time we
explore a different way of relating to each other.
Let me let you in on a secret about inspiration."

"I'm all ears."

"Alright then, let's start with this: Do I appear
solid to you or liquid?"

"Solid."

"Like a noun, not a verb, right?"

"A noun, right."

"Okay then, turn me into a verb."

"A verb . . ."

"Let me flow for you as a verb, a liquid."

"Flow . . ."

"Muse without ceasing. I mean, you
don't have to light one poem with the next
like a chain smoker, but never stop musing.
Then you won't have to wait around
for the classic muse to show up with
some grand inspiration. You can maintain your
own steady inspirational flow. And then as you
muse and write, be ready to drop what you
thought you had to say and simply
become alert to the various problems that
come up in the writing and work them
out like a painter confronting problems
of form and color, or like a mathematician
tackling problems in constructing a theory."

"As long we're converting here,
why stop with liquid verb? Why not have you
go all the way to gaseous exclamation?"

"Let's work with the liquid state awhile and see
how that goes. Down the line sometime,
I'll call you in again and we'll talk gas.
For now, though, I'll let you get back to those
little mountain apples you love so much."



©Dick Holmes


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Born in Kansas in 1949, Dick Holmes has lived elsewhere since growing up there, but the natural beauty and solitude of its vast fields and skies have continued to inform his aesthetic sensibilities. "For me," he writes, "poetry is a spiritual quest, a form of language for communing with the Divine Beloved. As such, composing a poem is more of a listening, truing meditation than a writing activity. Over the years, my poetry writing practice has guided me in every aspect of my life, from psychological growth to spiritual surrender."
Dick is the author of a large collection of poems entitled Recipes for Gratitude (Pure Heart Press, www.mainstreetrag.com/DickHolmes.html). He is a featured poet at AvatarMeherBaba.org (www.avatarmeherbaba.org/erics/dickholmes.html) and at Poetry-Chaikhana.com (www.poetry-chaikhana.com/H/HolmesDick/index.htm) and is a regular contributor to the Poetry-Chaikhana.com Forum. For the past thirty years, Dick and his wife Bronia have been teaching English to international students at the University of South Carolina.


http://www.tiferetjournal.com/page/poetry-corner-by-silent-lotus-2

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