To discover a poet

ON THE PIER
by Brenda Hillman

I'd like to walk out on ignorance like this,

long and brown like the ignorance of myself,

see water shimmer and jump,

see the birds find something they could accept.

I would be voicelessly condemned, a bad

sailor walking the plank, hearing the boards

cry out like the boards of an old desk,

slightly gaping, wet with a collection of mornings.

And the end of the pier, at the end of this ignorance,

I'd celebrate, The sea, like many wine glasses

tipped, "Here's to you--you know nothing at all!"

And birds crashing--white gloves, in applause!

Lately I have been hearing the long stretched out call of unclaimed experience; to act, to be a little bit braver, to be a lot braver.  There is so much fear in art. The water is so cold, that first dip, the feeling that rushes into the clammy solace you find in hiding.  Where if you stay, you might be okay, you might see a little sunlight darting onto the wall from the shimmering water where you ought to be, you might just smile at the view with the consolation of tomorrow. And an amount of time will pass, an hour or a year or even many years,  when the poet in you, the lover in you must suddenly rise and do what it needs to do, to come alive and to create, to love the way you are meant to love.

I could be content reading Mary Oliver poems for the rest of my life, but even she would say that one who would write poetry, must also read poetry, and a lot of it. This morning I discovered the poet Brenda Hillman on everyskinnytree, a blog whose author is a poet herself, and a lover of children. The post included her poem A Dwelling, which speaks so pointedly to the poet, to that place of trembling.