I rarely write poems about poetry.  While the challenging art of writing a good poem is as meritorious a subject as a stunning sunset or a broken heart. writing about writing can become trite and shallow if one is not careful.  My nephew Trevor called me tonight and asked me how I began to write poetry.  “I wasn’t content,” I told him, “to say simply, ‘How pretty.’  I wanted to dig deeper, to really get at the essence of beauty and my experience with it.  So I began to study and write poetry.”  Despite frequent arid periods, I have never stopped.  At the risk of writing a trite poem about writing poetry, I did just that in “Between.”  I hope it meets with your approval.

BETWEEN

Poems come from places in between:
between sleep and wakefulness;
between light and darkness;
between divine habitation
and this rough carnal plane;
between intellect and pathos;
belonging at once to neither
and to both: creations
of paradox and reconciliation.